Biography
Commonly Taught Courses
LING 330, LING 551
Biography
I am an anthropological linguist with field experience primarily in Amazonian Ecuador, province of Pastaza. My research interests center upon the cultural poetics of Quichua verbal practice and the role of ideophones and grammatical categories such as evidentiality in the expression of attitudinal alignments with nonhuman nature. My latest thoughts on all of this can be found in Lessons from a Quechua Strongwoman: Ideophony, Dialogue and Perspective, published by The University of Arizona Press. I teach Quichua Field Studies Classes in Ecuador during summers at the Andes and Amazon Field School in the Napo Province. My current research projects involve putting together various ‘pieces’ of Quichua grammar, including its phonology and verbal morphology, and delving more deeply into the possible role played by ideophony in the communication of unconventional knowledge.
Degrees
BA 1981 University of Wisconsin, Madison
MA 1983 University of Chicago
PhD 1990 University of Chicago
Interests
Morpholgy, semantics, pragmatics, discourse processes, Quichua languages, sound symbolism, ideophony
Honors and Awards
- Barker lectureship, College of Humanities (2013 - 2014)