Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A researcher of Creole language on Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island east of Madagascar, is joining two other Mauritian scholars and authors at Mississippi State University next week.
Vinesh Y. Hookoomsing, longtime professor of linguistics at the University of Mauritius, will lead a 2 p.m. public program Wednesday [March 25] in the Rogers Auditorium of McCool Hall. "Mauritius Since Mark Twain: Representations and Realities" will be his topic.
Hookoomsing, a former Fulbright Senior Fellow, will be on campus for Mauritian Week. Sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and its department of foreign languages, his campus visit is part of a collaborative effort involving author Ananda Devi on the 27th [www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4502] and Nobel laureate J.M.G. LeClézio on the 30th [www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4499].
"This is an outstanding opportunity to explore the culture, literature and language of a unique part of the world," said Keith Moser, MSU assistant professor of French who helped organize the literary activities.
Celebrated American writer Mark Twain noted in a travelogue that "You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius." Hookoomsing, an authority on language and culture in Creole and plural diaspora societies, will use the Twain comment as a background for his presentation.
Hookoomsing is a former dean of social sciences and humanities who was promoted to UM pro vice-chancellor in 2001. From 2006 until retirement two years later, he headed the university's Language Institute, which he founded.
For more information, telephone the foreign languages department at 662-325-3480.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.