Profile

William Leap

Department Chair, Anthropology
Anthropology

  • Additional Positions at AU

    Professor, Department of Anthropology
    Participating faculty: American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs
  • Language in everyday life is shaped by material conditions, by ideology, by power, by resistance– and by yearnings that are never extinguished by social regulation. Professor Leap's studies of American Indian English, language and AIDS, “gay men’s English” and now language, sexuality and globalization show how these themes play out on American Indian reservations, in South African townships, in DC public schools, and in lesbian/gay/ transgender communities. Through these studies he works with native speakers who are interrogating their own linguistic practices and engaging the politics of language use within their own speech communities. The Lavender Languages Conference (which he coordinates yearly), and his courses in linguistics, gender/sexuality and public anthropology provide for a similar political world. All of this shows him that there is no need to draw boundaries between theory and practice in today’s anthropology. There is one struggle, and local constituencies are already engaged in it. His task, as a public anthropologist, is to align the resources of the academe with those ongoing initiatives and visions.

  • Degrees

    PhD, Anthropology, Linguistics Concentration, Southern Methodist University
    BA, Anthropology and Linguistics, Florida State University

  • OFFICE

  • CAS - Anthropology
  • Battelle Tompkins - T-23
  • M 1:00-3:00 pm ; w 3:00 - 5:00 pm; TH 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

  • CONTACT INFO

  • (202) 885-1831 (Work)
  • (202) 885-1837 (Fax)

  • MEDIA RELATIONS

  • To request an interview
    please call AU Media Relations
    at 202-885-5950 or
    submit an interview request form.

Teaching

  • Fall 2009

    • ANTH-537 Topics in Language & Culture: Lang, Sexuality & Globalizatn
    • Description

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

 Public anthropology; Language, Sexuality, Ideology and Globalization; lesbian/gay/transgender studies

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

Out in Theory (co-edited with Ellen Lewin, 2002 )  received the Ruth Benedict prize for outstanding edited collection in lesbian/gay anthropology in 2003, Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association , 2004 .  It was chosen as one of Choice Magazine’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003

Word's Out (Leap, 1996)  received the Ruth Benedict prize for the outstanding lesbian/gay monograph of 1996, Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association , 1996.

Selected Publications

  • Lewin, Ellen and William L. Leap, eds. 1976 Out in The Field  Urbana: University of  Illinois Press., 2002 Out in Theory Urbana: University of Illinois Press., 2009 Out in Public New York City: Blackwells.
  • Leap, William and Tom Boellstorff, eds. 2004  Speaking in Queer Tongues: Gay Language and Globalization.Urbana: University of Illinois Press., Leap, William 1993 American Indian English. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
  • 1996  Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 
  • 2003  Language and gendered modernity. in The Handbook of Language and Gender. Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff, eds pp. 401-422. London:  Blackwells.
  • 2005  Finding the centre: Claiming gay space in Cape Town, South Africa in Performing Queer-Shaping Sexuality. 1994-2004. Mikki van Zyl and Melissa Styn, eds. Pp 235-266. Cape Town: Kwela Press.
  • 2008  "Queering gay men’s English.” in Language and Gender Research Methodologies. Kate Harrington, Lia Litosseliti,  Helen Sauntson, and Jane Sunderland, eds.  pp. 408-429. Basingstoke: Palgrave
  • 2008  “True thing that binds us”: Globalization, U.S. language pluralism and gay men’s English.” in The Impact of Globalization on the United States: Culture And Society. Michelle Bertho, eds. pp.183-209. Westport CT: Praeger Publishers.

AU Expert

Area of Expertise: Sexuality and culture, lesbian and gay issues, homophobia, AIDS, urban U.S.A., contemporary South Africa

Additional Information: William (Bill) Leap's recently published books include Public Sex, Gay Space (1998), Out in Theory (2002, coedited with Ellen Lewin), and Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay English (2003, coedited with Tom Bolestorff).

Media Relations
To request an interview please call AU Media Relations at 202-885-5950 or submit an interview request form.

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