Paul Kei Matsuda | dissoi logoi

The Applied Linguistics Speakers Series Announces:

Dr. Christian J. Faltis

Artful Applied Linguistics

Theme: Art and Language Policy in the Southwest

Abstract. I am interested in the process of double-imaging (Springgay, Irwin, & Kind, 2005), interconnections within, between, and through art and text-based inquiry that allows audiences to vicariously and critically experience issues that affect Mexican immigrants and raise new questions about their (mis) treatment in schools and society. I will explore how the juxtaposition of art with text and the transmediation between the two contributes to a scholarship of inquiry that furthers understanding of the life experiences of English learners in Arizona schools where native languages other than English are suppressed.

I will discuss oil paintings I created on the topics of restrictive language policy as renderings that I connect with written excerpts (e.g., Aparicio, 2000; Gándara & Contreras, 2009; Faltis, 2007; Faltis & Coulter, 2005; Romero, 2006; & Valencia, 2008) about the same topics to show how art and text complement and extend one another to offer new understandings and meaning. Each painting depicts an issue that is also discussed in the written literature about immigration and restrictive language policy. I weave in my personal narrative as a language scholar of how and why I created each painting with text that I have either written myself or have drawn on as I thought about and conceptualized the forms and content I wanted to lay down on the painting to convey my lived experiences with restrictive language policy in Arizona as both a researcher and an artist.

Chris Faltis is the Dolly and David Fiddyment Professor of Education and Director of Teacher Education at UC Davis. Prior to coming to UC Davis, he served on the faculty of Arizona State University for 18 years. He has also taught at the University of Alabama and the University Nevada. Chris was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2001, he received the American Educational Research Association’s Distinguished Scholar Award. Chris and co-author Cathy Coulter published the first book for teachers on improving instruction for high school English Learners. Recently, he co-authored a new book with Carole Edelsky and Karen Smith titled Side-by-Side Learning, a book for teachers who teach in classes where English learners are mixed with English speakers. He is currently completing a book with Beatriz Arias on restricted language policy in Arizona, and is co-editing a book with Guadalupe Valdés on immigrant, refugees and English learners. Chris is also an oil painter. His work has been shown in Arizona, Georgia, and Texas and addresses education themes related to Mexican immigrants in schools and the treatment of Mexican immigrants in the borderlands.