Words in Use

This book is due to be released January 2027. It is available on backorder.

Words in Use is a methodological crossing of spatial, temporal, and mental borders through words, as they are used in popular and expert usage. All thirteen chapters view words as fluid entities and explore words as points of encounter and reflection within wider critical discussions. The three sections, ‘Mapping worlds’, ‘Traversing worlds’ and ‘Performing worlds’ gesture to words as mediatory devices for boundary making, crossing or remaking within wider arrangements of position and power. In this volume, words are rendered legible whether they are spoken or muted, heard or left in silence. Conceived as a methodological provocation, Words in Use is a book for researchers in the humanities, students, educators and general readers, interested in the entanglements of language and culture.

Aarti Kawlra is the Academic Director of Humanities Across Borders (HAB), an education collaboration program mobilizing cross regional, interdisciplinary collaborations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She is the founding editor of the Humanities Across Borders book series of IIAS, published by Leiden University Press

Mohomodou Houssouba is a writer and linguist and associated researcher at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel. Specialized in African American literature, he studies the history of ideas through transatlantic literary and historical works. He is also actively engaged in the digitization of African languages.