Faculty and Human Resources

Some interested faculty who have been involved in the formulation of this proposal, and intend to participate in the activities of the Center, are the following:

• Roger Allen. Professor of Arabic in the Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. A specialist in Arabic literature and the dynamics of teaching language in the Arab world. Modern Arabic poetry and prose literacy; Co-Director of Huntsman Program of International Studies in Business, School of Arts and Sciences and Wharton.
• Sandra Barnes. Professor of Anthropology and Director of African Studies; Director, Title VI African Studies National Resource Center (a Consortium consisting of Penn, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore). Research also focuses on African diaspora, the sociology of knowledge in oral societies, and African women; curently preparing a study of cultural and social pluralism in pre-colonial West Africa.
• Nancy Hornberger. Goldie Anna Professor in the Graduate School of Education; interested in language planning and educational policy planning, bilingualism and biliteracy, indigenous and minority language education, in the United States and internationally, with special expertise in Latin America.
• William Labov. Professor, Linguistics; credited as the founder of a school of sociolinguistics recognizing the inherent variability of language; pioneer researcher on African-American English and other varieties of non-standard language. Interested in the social motivation of sound change.
• Muhammad Maamouri. Professor, Graduate School of Education. The Middle East, Arabic, literacy; the politics of minority languages, here and abroad, a major component of language and education policy, and of implementation problems in literacy projects worldwide.
• Teresa Pica. Professor, Graduate School of Education, Division of Language in Education, and Chairman, Language in Education Division; teaches courses and supervises research on second language teaching and learning, classroom discourse, and language across the professions at the Graduate School of Education. Her research has focused on social interaction inside and outside the classroom as a basis for second language learning.
• Gillian Sankoff. Professor, Linguistics Department; specialist in pidgin and creole languages, especially Oceania; linguistic anthropology, syntactic change, Francophonie and Canadian language and culture issues; bilingualism and multilingualism.
• Harold F. Schiffman: Luce Professor of Language Learning, South Asian Regional Studies. Interests in language policy, sociolinguistics of South and Southeast Asia, and the former USSR; and German and other US linguistic minorities. Director, Penn Language Center.
• Brian Spooner. Professor of Anthropology; former Chair of Middle Eastern and Asian Studies department and Director, Middle East Center. Interested in multilingual literacy (e.g. Pakistan), comparative study of modern complex societies in the Iranian culture area.
• Greg Urban. Professor of linguistic anthropology in Department of Anthropology; specialist on Amerindian Languages; language and culture.
• Daniel Wagner Professor of Education and Director, International Literacy Institute. Language and literacy; the Middle East, especially the Arab World; language and education.