Recent social movements such as decolonization and anti-racism have accentuated questions on the inequalities and biases in academic publishing. The dominance of North America and Europe is usually explained away by sympathetic scholars as resulting from the limited English proficiency or academic cultural awareness of multilingual writers in the Global South. They overlook, however, other material and structural inequalities that reduce access for these scholars.
On Thursday, 15 September 2022 at 1400 UTC, Dr Suresh Canagarajah, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics, English, and Asian Studies at Penn State University (USA), will describe how he experienced these inequalities when working in Sri Lanka for many years. After fleeing the country as ethnic fighting intensified, and finding an academic position in the US, he made attempts to diversify academic publishing in roles as editor of journals, head of professional organizations, and mentor of international scholars. In doing so, he identified spaces for qualified diversity in recent epistemological, rhetorical, and technological changes.
For a preview of his argument, see his book The Geopolitics of Academic Writing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002).
