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Senior Lecturer
Department of Anthropology
Loyola University Chicago
1032 W. Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL   60660
Office: Coffey 451
Office Phone: 773.508.3447
tstrand@luc.edu 

Thea Strand is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2009. Her primary research involves ongoing fieldwork in rural Valdres, Norway, where she studies the relationships among dialect use, language change, political economy, and mass media. Her current research projects are focused on 1) the ways in which dialect has become a valuable commodity in Valdres' growing tourism industry, and 2) the mutual environmental, cultural, and linguistic effects of tourism development and changing heritage practices around transhumant farming in Valdres (in collaboration with Dr. Michael Wroblewski, more details here).

COURSES FREQUENTLY TAUGHT

ANTH 100: Globalization and Local Cultures (Tier 1 Core, Fall)

ANTH 208: Language and Identity (Tier 2 Core, Spring)

ANTH 231: Linguistic Anthropology (Spring)

ANTH 330: Language in Popular Culture (Fall, even years)

ANTH 332: Language, Race, and Inequality (Fall, odd years)

PUBLICATIONS

Strand, Thea R. 2024. A Winning Dialect: Reinventing Linguistic Tradition in Rural Norway. University of Toronto Press.

Strand, Thea R. 2020. "Theoretical Aspects of Dialect: Geographic." In International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, edited by James M. Stanlaw. Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781118786093.

Strand, Thea R. 2019. "Tradition as Innovation: Dialect Revalorization and Maximal Orthographic Distinction in Rural Norwegian Writing." Multilingua 38(1): 51-68. DOI: 10.1515/multi-2018-0006.

Strand, Thea R. 2018. "Multivocality and Critical Performance of Urban Language in Rural Norway." In Rural Voices: Language, Identity and Social Change across Place, edited by Elizabeth Seale and Christine Mallinson, 3-21. Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield.

Strand, Thea R. and Michael Wroblewski. 2018. "Heritage Language." In Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology, edited by John L. Jackson. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199766567-0184.

Strand, Thea R. 2015. "Pro-Dialect Practices and Linguistic Commodification in Rural Valdres, Norway." In Language Variation -- European Perspectives V, edited by Eivind N. Torgersen, Stian Hårstad, Brit Mæhlum, and Unn Røyneland, 211-223. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/silv.17.

Strand, Thea R. 2012. "Winning the Dialect Popularity Contest: Mass-Mediated Language Ideologies and Local Responses in Rural Valdres, Norway." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22(1): 23-43. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1395.2012.01116.x.

Strand, Thea R. 2012. "Dialect as Style in Norwegian Mass Media." In Style-Shifting in Public: New Perspectives on Stylistic Variation, edited by Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy and Juan Antonio Cutillas-Espinosa, 185-203. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/silv.9.

Strand, Thea R., Michael Wroblewski, and Mary K. Good. 2010. "Words, Woods, Woyds: Variation and Accommodation in Schwar Realization in Southern Louisiana." Journal of English Linguistics 38(3): 211-229. DOI: 10.1177/0075424210373040.

Wroblewski, Michael, Thea R. Strand, and Sylvie Dubois. 2009. "Mapping a Dialect 'Mixtury': African American and White Vowel Phonologies in Rural Southern Louisiana." In African American English Speakers and their Participation in Local Sound Changes: A Comparative Study, edited by Malcah Yaeger-Dror and Erik R. Thomas, 48-72. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/-94-1-48.