Marcyliena Morgan is the Executive Director of the Hiphop Archive as well as Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.
Professor Morgan earned both her B.A. and her M.A. degrees at the
Marcyliena Morgan has conducted field research on the African Diaspora, identity and language in the
Download full Curriculum Vitae (2007) in .pdf format
| Ph.D. | Graduate School of Education | University of Pennsylvania | 1989 |
| MA | Theoretical Linguistics | University of Essex (England) | 1978 |
| MA | Communications | University of Illinois at Chicago | 1973 |
| BA | Communications & Anthropology | University of Illinois at Chicago | 1972 |
Professor 2008 - present
Department of African and African American Studies
Harvard University
Founding Director, Hiphop Archive
The Department of Afro-American Studies
W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research
Harvard University
Associate Professor 2005 - 2007
Department of Communication
Stanford University
Associate Professor 2002 - 2005
Director, Hip Hop Archive
The Department of African and African American Studies
W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research
Harvard University
Visiting Associate Professor, 1999-2001
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Associate Professor (with tenure) 1996 – 2002
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
Chair, African American Studies Program 1996
University of California, Los Angeles
Assistant Professor July 1990 - June 1996
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
Professor of Linguistics (Visiting), Center for African Studies, St. Hughes College - Oxford Summer 1990
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Pomona College
Instructor of Linguistics, Graduate School of Education,
University of Pennsylvania, 1980 - 1985
Lecturer, English Program for Foreign Students,
University of Pennsylvania 1981 - 1984
Lecturer, Black Studies Program,
University of Illinois at Chicago, 1974 - 1976
Instructor, Interpersonal Communications and Public Speaking,
Department of Speech Communications, Northern Illinois University 1972 and 1977
1) Urban speech communities: identity, migration, interaction, language use, discourse styles, urban youth language, verbal performance, hip-hop culture; 2) The African Diaspora: continuity and innovation in language and communication styles of peoples of African descent residing in the Americas and throughout the African Diaspora; 3) language, culture and identity: how language both constitutes and works in the construction of gender, national and other group identities, especially in urban areas; 4) Discourse strategies: intentionality and responsibility in discourse; construction of gender in discourse and narrative style and; language socialization; 5) verbal performance: in urban African Diaspora speech communities with special emphasis on African American toasts, signifying and rap; 5) language and education: language policy and planning regarding social class varieties and African American English in the US , literacy instruction, language education policy and programs for bilingual creole language speakers.
USA
Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Jackson, Mississippi and rural Mississippi. Research in these areas include Hiphop culture, African American women’s intergenerational language practices, the relation between women’s rural and urban migration and language use (Mississippi and Chicago), social class and language use in the African American community (Philadelphia), expressions of class and status (all), the development of the hip hop nation in the US and worldwide, language as a constitutive feature of hip hop, the construction of gender in the hip hop nation, literacy and bilingual literacy programs and curriculum (Philadelphia), African American English planning and policy (U.S.).
ENGLAND
Intergenerational study of language, discourse and interaction of mainly African Caribbean women. Focus is on continuity and innovation and the expression of home and identity. Adolescent organizations around US rap and hiphop styles.
CARIBBEAN
Jamaica: Female relatives and friends of women from intergenerational London study on language use and the expression of home and identity. Cuba: Hiphop as a form of resistance and representation in Cuba.
HIPHOP
Founding Director of the Hiphop Archive. The purpose of the current project is to identify and build on the theories of knowledge that have developed within the hiphop community. Interested in research and work with groups, organizations and students on Hiphop knowledge based programs, initiatives and research activities, events and acquire material culture associated with Hiphop in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Forthcoming. The Real Hiphop: Battling for Knowledge, Power, and Respect in the Underground. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press (in press).
Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2002)
(Editor) Language and the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations. Los Angeles: Center for African American Studies. (1994)
Forthcoming. The Presentation of Indirectness in Everyday Life. Journal of Pragmatics
2007 When and Where We Enter: Social Context and Desire in Women’s Discourse.
Journal of Gender and Language Vol. 1.1:119-129.
2006. Getting Off of Black Women’s Back: Love Her or Leave Her Alone. Du Bois Review, 3.2:1-18.
2005 “Shredding the Veil: Race and Class in Popular Feminist Identity” South Atlantic Quarterly 104.3
2004 “Speech Community” in A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. S. Duranti (ed.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
2004. “I’m every woman”: Black women’s (dis)placement in women’s language study
In Mary Bucholtz (ed.) Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Language and Woman’s Place: Text and Commentaries, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.
2003 “Hard Women, Soft Politics and Radical Chic in Hip-Hop”. Margaret Mead’s Legacy: Continuing Conversations. The Scholar & Feminist Online1.2
2003. Signifying Laughter & the Subtleties of Loud-Talking: Memory & Meaning in African American Women’s Discourse In Marcia Farr, (Ed.). Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and Literacy In Chicago’s Neighborhoods. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Pub. (Pages 51-76)
2001 “Ain’t Nothin’ But A G Thang”: Grammar, Variation and Language Ideology in Hip Hop Identity” In Sonja Lanehart Ed. African American Vernacular English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pp. 185-207).
2001 “The African American Speech Community - Reality and Sociolinguistics”. In Alessandro Duranti (ed.) Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pp. 74-94. (reprint)
2001. Community. In Alessandro (ed.) Key Terms in Language and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pp. 31-33. (reprint)
2000. Community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9 (1): 33-35.
2000 “Here Come the Drum”: Discursive “Shout-Outs” to the Ancestors. The Black Scholar. Fall-Winter 30(3-4):44-50.
2000. Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and Educational Malpractice. By John Baugh. Austin: University of Texas Press. Language and Society 30:1.130-133. (review article)
1999 African American Vernacular English: Features, Evolution, Educational Implications. By John R. Rickford. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages (review article).
1999. US Language Planning and Policies for Social Dialect Speakers. In Thom Huebner and Kathryn Davis (Eds.) Sociopolitical Perspectives on Language Policy and Planning in the USA. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins pp. 173-191.
1999 “No Woman No Cry”: Claiming African American Women’s Place. Reinventing Identities: From Category to Practice in Language and Gender (Editors) Bucholtz, A. C. Liang, Laurel A. Sutton. Oxford: Oxford University Press pp. 27-45.
1998 “More Than A Mood or An Attitude”: Discourse and Verbal Genres in African American Culture. In African American English: Structure, History and Usage (Editors) Salikoko Mufwene, John Rickford, Guy Bailey, John Baugh. London: Routledge pp. 251-281.
1998 Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity and Success at Capital High. By Signithia Fordham Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 29,3:377-378. (Review article)
1997 UCLA Today: “The Oakland Decision” (editorial)
1997 “Race and Language”. AAA Newsletter (editorial)
1996 Conversational Signifying: Grammar and Indirectness Among African American Women. In Grammar and Interaction (Editors) Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff and Sandra Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp. 405-434.
1996. “Redefining “Language in The Inner City”: Adolescents, Media and Urban Space”. Salsa IV:14-26.
1994. “No Woman No Cry: The Linguistic Representation of African American Women”. Cultural Performances (editors) Mary Bucholtz, A.C. Liang, Laurel A. Sutton and Caitlin Hines. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group pp. 525-541.
1994. “Theoretical and Political Arguments in African American English”. Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 23:325-45.
1994. “The African American Speech Community - Reality and Sociolinguistics” In Language and the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations (editor) M. Morgan. Los Angeles: CAAS Publications pp.121-148.
1993. “The Africanness of counterlanguage among Afro-Americans” In Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. (ed.) S. Mufwene. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press pp. 423-35.
1993. The Death of Black English: Divergence and Convergence in Black and White Vernaculars. (review article) Journal of Pidgin & Creole Linguistics 8.2:241-251.
1991. “Indirectness and Interpretation in African American Women’s Discourse”. Pragmatics 1.4:421-51.
2007 When and Where We Enter: Social Context and Desire in Women’s Discourse.
Journal of Gender and Language Vol. 1.1:119-129.
2005 “After…Word! The Philosophy of the Hip-Hop Battle.” In Derrick Darby and Tommie
Shelby (Eds.) Hip Hop & Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason. Chicago: Open Court.
Marcyliena MorganHarvard University
Department of African
and African American Studies
Barker Center, 2nd Floor
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-496-8885
Fax: 617-496-2871
Email: mmorgan@fas.harvard.edu
Marcyliena Morgan
Associate Professor
Rm.300H McClatchy Hall
(650) 723-5448
mmorgan2@stanford.edu
Professor Morgan’s Homepage
Hiphop Archive @ Stanford Homepage
Office hours: By appointment
Marcyliena Morgan’s research focuses on youth, gender, language, culture and identity, sociolinguistics, discourse and interaction. Professor Morgan teaches courses on hiphop, discourse, language and identity, race, class and gender, the ethnography of communications, and representation in the media. She is the author of, Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture (2002) and Editor of Language and the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations (1994). Her other publications include articles and chapters on gender and women’s speech, language ideology, discourse and interaction among Caribbean women in London and Jamaica, urban youth language and interaction, hip hop culture, and language education planning and policy.
Professor Morgan is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Hiphop Archive. She founded the Hiphop Archive at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University while on the faculty in African American Studies. She is currently completing a book on hiphop culture entitled The Real Hiphop - Battling for Knowledge, Power, and Respect in the Underground .
The Hiphop Archive was officially established in 2002 under the direction of Marcyliena Morgan. Since the early 1970s, Hiphop has become the most influential artistic, educational and social movement for youth and young adults. From The Hiphop Archive’s inception, students, faculty, artists, staff and other participants in Hiphop culture have been committed to supporting and establishing a new type of research and scholarship devoted to the knowledge, art, culture, materials, organizations, movements and institutions developed by those who support and follow Hiphop. In response to this movement The Hiphop Archive organizes and develops collections, initiates and participates in research activities, sponsors events and acquires material culture associated with Hiphop in the U.S. and throughout the world.
It is now 30 years since its entrance onto the urban landscape and Hiphop continues to be supported, protected and scrutinized by those who created it. In the process, it has become an uncompromising prism for critique, social and political analysis and representation of marginalized and underrepresented communities throughout the world. The Hiphop Archive curates all forms of Hiphop material culture including recordings, videos, web sites, films, original papers, works, references, productions, conferences, meetings, interviews, publications, research, formal proceedings, etc. Material is collected according to particular themes and research initiatives. While the Archive is a record of Hiphop activity locally, nationally and internationally, it also incorporates all of the activities that have developed within and in response to Hiphop. These include academic courses, arts and community organizations, underground performances and venues, spoken word, political organizations, religious programs and much more.
The Hiphop Archive’s mission is to facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture and responsible leadership through Hiphop. We are uncompromising in our commitment to build and support intellectually challenging and innovative scholarship that both reflects the rigor and achievement of performance in Hiphop and transforms our thinking and our lives. Toward these goals, our Website: hiphoparchive.org provides information about all activities and projects and serves as a resource for those interested in knowing, developing, building, maintaining and representing Hiphop.
Hiphop LX (linguistics) is dedicated to representing the words and expressions that represent and serve as a symbol for a region and area. It explores the language system of Hiphop and how the word came into being, meanings and the overall development of the word and expression. It challenges everyone to represent their region with true bona fide words and present them to be researched, examined, challenged and celebrated.
In Hiphop the WORD is the message. Language is a system of sounds and symbols and communication in any language is based on how to use that system. Many words and expressions in Hiphop represent regions, neighborhoods and cities. If you know the system, you have power over ideas and imagination. You can build, change, plan, play and destroy. For more information go to: http://worldhiphop.net/lx/
El Sitio del Puño is a space designed to create a fusion of two cultures: the relentless Latino culture along with the vibrant Hiphop culture. El puño, the fist, symbolizes the power, fight, and struggles of the people from Latin America. Hiphop transcends ethnicity, nationality, and race; we are all brothers and sisters with Hiphop born deep within us. Hiphop seeped into the hearts of people throughout the world and this is the place where we showcase the empowerment of Hiphop within the rich culture of Latin America.
Booyah Tribe, Extreme Crew, Dan the Automator, DJ Krush, Too Phat, Forbidden City Rockers, Mountain Brothers, MC Hotdog . . . and the list goes on. Asian and Asian American artists innovate, create, and support Hiphop culture in the US and abroad. They have revolutionized elements of Hiphop and continue to expand the boundaries of Hiphop culture.
The objective of the Asian and Asian American Research Lab (AAARL) is to give recognition to Asian and Asian American Hiphop artists and to further the development of Hiphop Cultural Studies. The AAARL will chronicle the histories of Asian and Asian American Hiphop cultures by conducting archival research and media analysis, interviewing Asian and Asian American Hiphop artists, and engaging in field work in Asian countries. In order to discover existing resources on Asian and Asian American Hiphop, the AAARL will establish networks with organizations, universities, and individuals working on similar projects. The AAA Research Lab will collect and archive Hip Hop cultural products. The AAA Research Lab will also publish scholarly articles dealing with issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, transnationality, language, and gender.
