Anthony K. Webster
Professor — Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Contact
- E-mail: awebster@utexas.edu
- Office Hours: By appointment
- Campus Mail Code: C3200
Interests
Linguistic anthropology, ethnopoetics, (Southern) Athabaskan languages, Navajo English, translation, iconicity, linguistic relativity, sounds, moral imagination, languages and inequalities, discursive discrimination, history of anthropology
Biography
Here are some recent and forthcoming publications (they suggest something of the kinds of things I'm interested in)
Books
2021 The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature. (co-edited with Esther G. Belin, Jeff Berglund, and Connie Jacobs). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
2018 The Sounds of Navajo Poetry: A Humanities of Speaking. New York: Peter Lang.
2015 The Legacy of Dell Hymes: Ethnopoetics, Narrative Inequality, and Voice. (co-edited with Paul V. Kroskrity). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
2015 Intimate Grammars: An Ethnography of Navajo Poetry. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Paperback edition published 2016.
2009 Explorations in Navajo poetry and poetics. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Special Issues
2019 Joel Sherzer and the Importance of Staying Discourse-Centered. Special Issue Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. (co-edited with Rusty Barrett). 29(2): 143-248.
2014 Ideophones: Between grammar and poetry. Special Issue Pragmatics & Society. (co-editor with Katherine Lahti and Rusty Barrett). 5(3): 335-454.
2012 Ordeals of Language: Essays in Honor of Ellen B. Basso. Special Issue Journal of Anthropological Research. (co-editor with Juan Luis Rodriguez). 68(3). 305-422.
2011 American Indian Languages in Unexpected Places. Special Issue American Indian Culture & Research Journal. (co-editor with Leighton C. Peterson). 35(2): 1-182.
Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming "Let Them Know How I Was or Something Like That, You Know:" On Lingual Life Histories, Remembering, and Navajo Poetry. Journal of Anthropological Research.
Forthcoming Anthropology at the Water's Edge: Morris Opler among the Apaches. Journal of the Southwest.
2020 Learning to be Satisfied: Navajo poetics, a chattering chipmunk, and ethnopoetics. Oral Tradition. 34(1): 73-104.
2020 Poetics, Poetry, and Ethnopoetics. (with Aimee J. Hosemann). The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology.
2019 Poetry and emotion: Poetic communion, ordeals of language, intimate grammars, and complex remindings. In The Routledge Handbook
of Language and Emotion. (eds. Sonya E. Pritzker, Janina Fenigsen, and James M. Wilce). New York: Routledge. 182-202.
2019 From Literacy/Literacies to Graphic Pluralism and Inscriptive Practices. (with Erin Debenport). Annual Review of Anthropology. 48: 389-404.
2019 (Ethno)Poetics and Perspectivism: On the hieroglyphic beauty of ambiguity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 29(2): 168-174.
2017 “I don’t write Navajo poetry, I just speak the poetry in Navajo:” Ethical Listeners, Poetic Communion, and the Imagined Future Publics of Navajo Poetry. In Engaging Native American Publics: Linguistic Anthropology in a New Key. (edited by Paul Kroskrity and Barbra Meek). 149-168.
2017 Why Tséhootsooí does not equal Kit Carson Dr.: Reflections on Navajo place-names and the inequalities of languages. Anthropological Linguistics. 59(3): 239-262.
2017 “A Line Will Take Us Hours Maybe:” Craft and Inspiration from the Ethnography of Poetry. Les Cahiers de Littérature Orale. 81: 51-88.
2017 “So it’s got three meanings dil dil:” Seductive ideophony and the sounds of Navajo poetry. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue
canadienne de linguistique. 62(2): 173-195.
2017 A Holistic Humanities of Speaking: Franz Boas and the continuing centrality of texts. (with Patience Epps and Anthony C. Woodbury). International Journal of American Linguistics.83(1): 41-78.
2016 The Art of Failure in Translating a Navajo Poem. Journal de la Société des Américanistes. 102(1): 9-41.
2015 The poetry of sound and the sound of poetry: Navajo poetry, phonological iconicity, and linguistic relativity. Semiotica. 207: 279-301.
2015 “Everything got kinda strange after a while:” Some reflections on translating Navajo poetry that should not be translated. Anthropology & Humanism. 40(1): 72-93.
2014 DIF’ G’ONE’ and Semiotic Calquing: A signography of the linguistic landscape of the Navajo Nation. Journal of Anthropological Research.
70(3):385-410.
2013 Speech Play and Language Ideologies in Navajo Terminology Development. (with Leighton C. Peterson) Pragmatics. 23(1): 93-116.
2011. "Please Read Loose:" Intimate Grammars and Unexpected Languages in Contemporary Navajo Literature. American Indian Culture and Research Journal. 35(2): 61-86.
https://anthonykwebster.wordpress.com/