MIT linguistics professor hosts public seminars studying Palestine, Israel, and Haiti

By Reporter Annie Sarlin and Reporter Madison Lucchesi

Linguistics professor at MIT Michel DeGraff organized a seminar series to examine language in the modern world with specific studies of Israel, Palestine, and Haiti. 

Beginning on Sept. 4, faculty from Harvard University and UMASS Boston as well as representatives from the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have served as guest speakers. The seminars will be held weekly on Wednesdays from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. until Dec. 11.

“I like to call it a people seminar that you just come in and learn and discuss with no credit so far, because the course has been effectively censored by my MIT linguistics colleagues, all but one who had the courage to stand for the truth…it's attracting a strong group of participants, students, staff, faculty…have come to the seminar, and it's been an amazing learning experience,” said DeGraff. 

DeGraff originally proposed these discussions as a for-credit class, but after rejection from the MIT administration, he turned them into an open learning opportunity for anyone in the university community. 

“They created an ad hoc committee just to review my proposal,” DeGraff said. “That committee told me that…it's unfit for linguistics… This is so anti-intellectual, so anti-science. So, in fact, this pushback convinced me even more that this course was needed.”

DeGraff framed the seminars to give students, staff and participants linguistic tools for discussion. The course explores the inclusion of language in creating propaganda and within power structures.

“Once you have these tools, you are better prepared to defend yourself against these attacks on your integrity that make you believe things that you know that are not true…what we're doing in the seminar is to show that you cannot do linguistics without understanding the social envelope that makes language so so so powerful.”

Degraff seminars’ will be recorded and ultimately shared with the public on the MIT OpenCourse Ware YouTube channel after the series' conclusion.