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eJournal USA, Dynamic English Contributor Ilan Stavans

Photo courtesy of Ilan Stavans

Ilan Stavans Date: Monday, 20 August 2007 Time: 9:00 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) View Webchat Transcript

Join professor, writer, lexicographer, translator, TV personality and cultural commentator llan Stavans for an online discussion of the evolving nature of the English language. Stavans will also talk about the formation in the United States of a hybrid language between English and Spanish. This USINFO webchat coincides with the Electronic Journal series on Dynamic English, to which Stavans has contributed two articles.

Guest Biography:

Ilan Stavans teaches at Amherst College and is an internationally known cultural critic, linguist, translator, public speaker, editor, short-story writer and TV host. His work focuses on language, identity, politics, and history and include the books The Hispanic Condition (1995), The Riddle of Cantinflas (1998), Latino USA: A Cartoon History (2000, with Lalo López Alcaráz), Spanglish (2003), Dictionary Days (2005), The Disappearance (2006), and Love and Language (2007). He also edited The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, the 3-volume Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, Rubén Darío: Selected Writings, as well as the four-volume Encyclopedia Latina. Between 2001 and 2006, he hosted the syndicated Public Broadcasting System television show, Conversations with Ilan Stavans. The movie My Mexican Shiva, co-produced by John Sayles, is based on Stavans' story, Morirse esta en Hebreo.

Stavans has received numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the Rubén Darío Medal, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Latino Hall of Fame award.