By Kristen LaRue-Sandler — January 20, 2026
Four faculty members in the ASU Department of English announce volumes recently published. Works include a special issue reprint, an anthology, a regular journal issue and a research paper collection addressing topics of children's literature, rhythm studies, computer-assisted language learning and linguistic change.
‘African American Children's Literature: Humanities Special Issue Reprint’ (MDPI, 2026)
This themed issue of Humanities journal was edited by Neal A. Lester. From the publisher:
- “While the various essays that constitute this Special Issue involve historical and social contexts, the goal of the volume and these essays is to remind readers across disciplines and professions that Black children are and have always been at the nexus of adult US racial politics.”
Lester is Foundation Professor in the ASU Department of English's literature program and is founding director of Project Humanities.
‘The Rise of Rhythm Studies: Mediating Dimension, Discipline, and Scale’ (Bloomsbury, 2026)
This collection of theoretical, aesthetic and case studies edited by Mark Lussier and Richard Sha was released this January. From the publisher:
- “Rhythm is everywhere. Its ability to focus and unify interdisciplinary conversation begs the questions: What is rhythm and can different disciplines agree on its definition?
Rhythm studies have emerged as a key background form traversing cultural, natural, and social forms like cognition, communication, and even cosmology. An added boon: this background can seem unifying. Those who explore such entangled phenomena study the throbbing presence of rhythmic, oscillatory, and vibratory potentials: Neuroscientists turn to rhythm for novel explanations of why our cognitive capacities are so limited; physicists use it to cross time and space; scholars in various fields turn to it to rethink materialism and affect theory.
This lively collection considers why rhythm currently functions as a form of mediation between disciplines, across widely different scales and dimensions. The Rise of Rhythm Studies tests what rhythm can do through theoretical examinations and in case studies ranging from European literature to topology and media studies to Chinese visual art. Established scholars, such as Nina Kraus, Anna Gibbs, and Caroline Levine, alongside rising scholars in the field, marshal transdisciplinary perspectives in order to understand rhythm as a boundary condition for living in and working through and with the world.”
Lussier is a professor emeritus in the ASU Department of English’s literature program.
CALICO Journal 42:3 (October 2025)
With Marta González-Lloret and Ana Oskoz, Bryan Smith edited this thematic journal issue published by the University of Toronto Press. From the introduction:
- “Technology-mediated TBLT (TMTBLT) has grown significantly in the last decade. The term was first used by González-Lloret and Ortega (2014) to refer to the programmatic integration of tasks and technology for language learning, rather than treating technology as a peripheral enhancement.
… We hope that this thematic issue contributes to the growing body of knowledge on TMTBLT and inspires researchers in the field to expand their definition of task to include innovations that are increasingly integral to language learning settings and to the lives of language learners worldwide. Further research will be essential to consolidate findings and to provide a stronger foundation for meta-analysis, such as the one presented by Bryfonski, Ziegler, and Monte, which synthesizes existing quantitative research and offers invaluable insights into the directions the field of TMLTB should pursue, such as conducting more studies with young learners and employing task-based assessment.”
Smith is a professor in the ASU Department of English’s linguistics and applied linguistics program.
‘Comparing Linguistic Diachronies: The Naxos Papers (Volume III)’ (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Elly van Gelderen, Nikolaos Lavidas and Alexander Bergs co-edited this volume, published last December, of papers arising from the Naxos summer school workshops. From the publisher:
- “This volume presents eight case studies examining diachronic linguistics and language contact, as well as different aspects of language change.
The chapters cover a variety of topics and consider the relationship between historical data and linguistic theory. They also examine the diachronic development of linguistic characteristics in different levels of linguistic analysis including historical morpho-syntax, historical phonology, historical pragmatics and historical sociolinguistics. The authors propose modern methodologies of analyzing and explaining the diachronic development of various morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic characteristics. Focusing on common directions of change in different languages, including English, Gothic, Ancient Greek, Eastern Indo-Aryan and Hebrew, they provide explanations that reveal the role of internal factors as well as of language contact.
The volume promotes a dialogue between traditional approaches to language change and modern approaches utilizing new, statistical methodologies. Through this type of dialogue, the volume enriches our knowledge of theoretical perspectives, tools and methods that can facilitate a contrastive analysis of the diachronic development of linguistic characteristics.”
Van Gelderen is Regents Professor Emeritus in the ASU Department of English’s linguistics and applied linguistics program.