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Cécile Evers

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Office:
Hahn Hall
110

With Pomona Since: 2018
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  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Cécile Evers is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist whose work examines how French-Muslim youth from Marseille situate themselves within France, the Mediterranean Basin, and the Muslim world. Her research focuses in particular on how, through language, religious practices and creative use of media, youth express their identities and cultural citizenship.

    Currently, she is working on a multi-sited postdoctoral research project tracing the onward migrations of young Muslim women from Marseille – to Europe, the Middle East and their parents' home countries in North Africa.

    Areas of Expertise

    • Language and culture
    • The anthropology of youth
    • Embodied religion
    • The Mediterranean borderlands
    • Semiotics
    • New media and communication
    • History of anthropology and linguistics
  • Work

    Work

    Articles:

    2020 “Sexual Slurs: Ethnoracial Policing of Peers’ Language Use among Muslim Youth from Marseille’s Projects.” Chapter Three. In Sociolinguistique des pratiques langagières de jeunes: Faire genre, faire style, faire groupe autour de la Méditerranée (eds.: C. Trimaille, C. Pereira, K. Ziamari, M. Gasquet-Cyrus). Grenoble: Editions Littéraires et Linguistiques de l’Université de Grenoble.

    2019 “Views from Within and Without: Youth from Marseille’s Housing Projects Enact Belonging Through Marseillais French and Arabic.” Journal of Multicultural and Multilingual Development. DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2020.1724121.

    “Not Citizens of a Classical Mediterranean: Muslim Youth from Marseille Elude a Linguistic Gentrification by the French State.” Signs and Society, 6(2): 435-474. The University of Chicago Press Journals. (2018)

    “Alienated at Home: The Role of Online Media as Young Orthodox Muslim Women Beat a Retreat from Marseille.” In C. Cutler & U. Røyneland (Eds.), Multilingual Youth Practices in Computer-Mediated Communication (pp. 27-50). Cambridge University Press. (2018)

    Orthographic Policy and Planning in Sénégal/Senegal: The Détournement of Orthographic Stereotypes. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 26(1): 23-56. (2011)

    Book Reviews:

    Review of Friederike Kern & Margret Selting (Eds.), Ethnic Styles of Speaking in European Metropolitan Areas. Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2011. 321 pp. Language in Society, 42(5): 602-603. (2013).

    Review of Katherine E. Hoffman, We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2008. 261 pp. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 41(4): 387-389. (2010)

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

    B.A., University of California, Berkeley

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Linguistic Anthropology
    • Language and Globalization
    • Language and Piety in the Muslim World
    • History of Anthropological Theory
    • Language, Gender and Sexuality
    • Cultural Anthropology
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    • National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation Dissertation Write-Up Fellowship (2014-2015)
    • Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2012-2013)
    • Janet Lee Stevens Fellowship, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania (2012)
    • Foreign Language and Area Studies (Arabic, Wolof) Fellow, University of Pennsylvania (2010-2012)