The Language Lane

Author’s Note: The Promise of Language has a different purpose than my previous memoir writing, most notably Voices of the Self: A Study...

In March 1969, the Fisk graduate made a literary splash in New York City as she promoted her new volume of poetry, Black Judgement ....

While operating within a lifelong lyrical odyssey, his journey to build “roads of odes” (22), Sterling Plumpp checks in with his new...

I feel some type of way about certain kinds of electioneering. First off, they are using my first name, which I rarely use and never...

As Republicans and Democrats agree, this election discourse is weird. For one, Republican pundits are shook. They know it’s impossible to...

I bet that Kamala Harris makes it through the storms of definitions and labels and arrives safely in the White House. Political enemies...

“Glad to be out for convo and the coldest beer,” exclaimed Semple Jenkins, seated next to Boyd at their favorite bar. “Heat wave had me...

By now, most media followers have heard about how the house was set afire, that is, the House Oversight Committee. Convened to discuss a...

Scottie Scheffler was arrested in Louisville for disobeying a detective’s traffic command and dragging him 30 feet, causing injuries....

When my students and I read Sing, Unburied, Sing, we were aware that author Jesmyn Ward had Toni Morrison’s Beloved (which one or two...

The success of the excellent movie American Fiction has brought renewed attention to Percival Everett’s Erasure, the 2001 novel on which...

When I saw a teenage Beyoncé play the lead in Carmen: A Hip Hopera, which was made for MTV, I figured there was no limit to how big a...

As I turned back into the Language Lane, I was reminded of the continual vibrancy of African American Language when I was watching the...

Unless it’s going to be all war all the time in the land of old Palestine, a political solution must be sought. That a viable one to...

Reflecting on the World Athletics Championships recently concluded in Budapest, I find that I enjoyed a few of the language performances...

I have been off the block too long. I admit to being confused when I saw that the boxer Shakur Stevenson called out fellow boxer Vasiliy...

The fuss fading over the Brawl in Montgomery. The rap song been made by Gmac Cash. Jokes told. Names handed out to the Alabama Avengers...

Today, Chris Wallace reminded me why, besides the Trump fetish they pretend not to have, I watch CNN less and less these days. While...

After Cornel West announced his quest to run for president as the Green Party nominee, he mentioned in several interviews the idea of...

Eugenia Rho and her research colleagues have demonstrated in a recent study that the verbal approach of officers during vehicle stops of...