Anne Curzan


Anne Curzan is a professor at the University of Michigan, author of books on language, member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, and co-host of That's What They Say on Michigan Radio.

Biography

Curzan earned a BA in linguistics from Yale University and an MA and a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan.
She is the Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan, where she also holds faculty appointments in the Department of Linguistics as the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English and the School of Education. She serves as Co-Director of the Joint PhD Program in English and Education, and as the Faculty Athletics Representative for the university. She has taught more than 15 courses at the University of Michigan and the University of Washington, including History of the English Language, French Influence in the History of English, Language and Gender, and Standard English and the Politics of Language Authority. Her research interests include the history of English, language and gender, corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, pedagogy, and lexicography.
Curzan is a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel and the American Dialect Society, which votes on the Word of the Year. She writes regularly for The Chronicle of Higher Education's language blog, Lingua Franca, and is a co-host of the program That's What they Say on Michigan Radio.
In 2019, she was appointed Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Awards and honors

Curzan has received several awards for her work, including the Henry Russel Award, the Faculty Recognition Award, and the John Dewey Award.

Books