Power of Language Week

Wesleyan is home to a wide cast of identities, life experiences, and traditions among its over 3,000 students. Each bring their own stories and backgrounds that combine to make campus a place where difference is celebrated. At Wesleyan, each person has a place to find their community. For some of Wesleyan’s students, finding community lays in sharing where they come from outside of the borders of campus. The university’s second annual Power of Language Week is a chance to set aside time to cherish and display those identities and the many languages that can come with them. The Fries Center…

Growing up in suburban Iowa, Andrea Weires ’19 said she could not recognize the people she lived next to for over a decade. Despite being there for less than two years, the community she serves in for the Peace Corps in northwestern Dominican Republic is vibrant and full of welcoming faces. “In my Peace Corps site, people know, care about, and take care of their families and neighbors—which is often the same people,” Weires said. “The solidarity and care for community here is really inspiring.” Weires said a fellow former Wesleyan student told her to always smile at everyone she…

Translation can be both a weapon for imperial conquest and a way to explode language in new and innovative ways, according to a New York Times bestselling writer. Author Rebecca F. Kuang and Stephen Angle, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies and director of the Fries Center for Global Studies, engaged in a wide-ranging discussion February 20 about the relationship between languages, translation, and colonialism, a theme in her bestselling novel “Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.” Kuang spoke as part of Power of Language Week, sponsored by the Fries Center.…

Power of Language Week to Celebrate Multilingualism at Wesleyan

Alumni Share Peace Corps Experiences

Bestselling Author R.F. Kuang Speaks on Power of Translation