Eric Louis Russell

ELR

Position Title
Professor of French & Italian
Affiliated Faculty of Linguistics
Affiliated Faculty of the DE in Gender, Sexualities & Women's Studies
Undergrad Faculty Advisor and Contact for Italian

508 Sproul Hall
Bio

I am a linguist who is interested in people as linguistic and cultural beings. In my view, language and culture are inseparable, and neither of these can be understood apart from the humans who accomplish them.

I take a fairly iconoclastic stance when it comes to my work, whether this be teaching, research or writing. This begins with a question: What if we were to take the seemingly radical step of thinking of language differently - not as something that exists apart from us, a noun or entity that can do anything or that possesses certain features? What if we were to reimagine language as a verb - to riff from the late, great bell hooks and her take on love (who was inspired by the work of Scott Peck, who pulled from Erich Fromm...), language is an act of will, an intention and an action, a series of choices. Language is a doing, and a doing with other language-doers. If we accept this, we must also recognize that our action does much more than meets the eye. We are accomplishing power, living out ideology, manifesting identity, deploying our privilege... and pushing against others' privilege. Our language doings construct and reflect our worlds - the truths we hold and the realities that guide us. This "script flipping" not only upends the ways we often refer to language (namely, as anthropomorphized beings), it also returns language and linguistics to the humanities and to the realm of humans.

My research proceeds critically, which is another way of saying that I identify problem areas and seek to understand them from the inside, unraveling the structures and dynamics that lead languagers to take things for granted or consider them natural and inevitable. I've tackled questions of homophobia and Islamophobia, toxic masculinity and male hegemony, cisgenderism and sexism; I'm currently working on a project that engages with the privileged world of certain languager groups and the unseen work of others. Because I firmly believe that this type of work can not be done from a distance, I work emically ("from within"), applying my questions to Anglophone, Francophone, Italophone and Netherlandophone cultural spaces. 

To get a sense of my research and perspective, click here for a recent keynote given at the Università degli Studi di Trieste - Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici during the "Giornata sulle trasformazioni dell'umano". 

My teaching also departs from these bases. In addition to classes in French and Italian linguistics, I regularly offer a course examining very bad language - swearing, offensive jokes, slurs, and all manner of actions that make people (including myself!) cringe. I truly enjoy mentoring students interested in this type of work, and welcome the chance to work with everyone, from first-year undergrads to those writing their doctoral theses. I am also the faculty advisor for Italian majors and minors, a role that allows me to interact with students from different backgrounds and with varied goals. 

I also take part in a local master's swim team, enjoy photography, and just about anything involving informed exploring, cooking and wine.

Feel free to come by and chat about language, culture, where to swim or just about anything else!

Education and Degree(s)
  • PhD, University of Texas, Austin
Courses
  • FRE 109 - Phonetics & Phonology
  • FRE 161 - Form, Meaning & Structure
  • FRE 201 - A Critical History of French
  • HUM 15 - Bad Language and Social Identity
  • ITA 128 - Topics in Italian Culture
Research Interests & Expertise
  • Linguistic analysis of discourse practices
  • Language, hegemonies, masculinities and sexualities
  • Gender in/and/through language
  • Taboo language (insults, offenses, censorship)
Membership and Service
  • External Grant Reviewer: National Science Foundation, Agence Nationale de la Recherche & Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Leverhulm Trust
  • COCI/General Education Committee
  • Humanities Program Committee
  • "Aggie Success" Program for incoming students