Anthony J. Harb

My research brings together theories and methodological tools from sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, education, media, and ethnic studies to better understand how discursive and linguistic practices shape, and are shaped by, identity work. My interdisciplinary work contends with how marginalized communities use face-to-face and mediated language to negotiate, resist, and restructure inequalities around gender, immigration status, and language across communicative modalities and contexts. Thus far, my work has explored how a primarily Mexican immigrant community in rural Minnesota uses Spanish-language community radio to construct and assert their collective and individual identities starting on the air, but then expanding into the classroom via civic engagement courses, and into the public sphere through antiracist coalitions. Recently, my research has broadened to examine the raciolinguistic experiences of Arabs in the diaspora, the ways English- and Arabic-language news media frame and circulate discourse, and how disability and debilitation shape everyday life in Palestine. My work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. I was also named one of the 2024 Concha Delgado Gaitán Presidential Fellows from the Council on Anthropology and Education.

Prior to joining the Department of Communication, I was the Partner Schools and Continuing Teacher and Leader Education Coordinator for the CUNY – Initiative on Immigration and Education, a research-action project funded by the New York State Education Department.

Ph.D. in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures (CUNY Graduate Center)

B.A. in Spanish (Carleton College)

Undergraduate Courses

COMM 100A: Communication, the Person and Everyday Life

COMM 110X: Texting & Talking

COMM 168: Bilingual Communication 

COMM 190: Latines Languaging Toward Justice

Graduate Courses

COGR 219: Discourse and Organizations

COGR 275: Languages, Schools, Colonial Rules