As the English language has increasingly begun to function as one of the world’s most important lingua francas, it has frequently acted as a carrier of Anglo-American economic, cultural, and military power. Language itself has become a site of resistance, and Slovene, with only a few million speakers, is uniquely placed as a microcosm of this resistance.

    Over the past two hundred years, what is now known as the nation of Slovenia was at various points part of both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Napoleon’s French Empire, was divided and occupied by the Germans, Italians and Hungarians and allied in government with Croatians and Serbians. At each point, access to status and economic advancement was connected to foreign languages.

    With the collapse of the Yugoslav federation and the establishment of the Republic of Slovenia, the Slovenian language is now at the center of the Slovenian people’s identity as a nation. Many of the streets, squares and monuments in its capital city Ljubljana are named after the great Slovene writers and poets such as France Prešeren and Ivan Cankar, legendary in Slovenia, but almost unknown to English speakers. And yet, even as Slovenia joins a new federation, the EU, the English language has become a “language of access.” As English-speaking U.S. artists, Deidre Hoguet and I hoped to engage the people of Ljubljana in a two-way dialogue about power and language in today’s world. We were richly rewarded for our efforts.

Public Discussions

“Languages and Power” - Monday Night in New York & Weimar
16 Beaver Group, Manhattan
ACC-Galerie Weimar, Weimar
July 28, 2003

Selected Readings & Discussion led by Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh at 16 Beaver Group in collaboration with Gallery P74, Ljubljana, Slovenia. A second group will meet at ACC-Galerie Weimar.

Topic Description: The Bush Administration’s “Coalition of the Willing” for the invasion of Iraq was in many ways a “Coalition of the English-Speaking.” Are we witnessing the re-emergence of a kind of Anglophone pan-nationalism? Were the American, British and Australian governments - “the willing” - really defining their joint interests by the following phrase: “Where English-speaking armies go, English goes, and where English goes, English-speaking business people go”? With the current climate in mind, we want to discuss two chapters relating to languages and the origins of nationalisms from Benedict Anderson’s well-known book Imagined Communities.

To see more info about the evening and the text, go to:
http://www.16beavergroup.org/monday/archives/000337.php

"Jezik in moč/ Languages and Power, Part 2"
Ljubljana,Slovenia
September 16, 2003

A panel discussion Including P74 Gallery Director and artist Tadej Pogačar and Moderna Galerija curator Igor Zabel, Ljubljana-based American writer and translator Rawley Grau and artists Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh.

Topic Description: Building on the "Languages and Power" discussion of July 28th, we will continue in Ljubljana by focusing on the relationships between working vernacular languages like Slovene or Lithuanian and expanding lingua francas like English, or more historically speaking, French or Latin.