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Hola, and welcome to my faculty homepage. I have been a professor at MTSU since 1998, teaching all levels of Spanish as well as several linguistics classes. Check out my Spanish & Power class link on this page. I have a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the Ohio State University.

My current scholarly research focuses on patterns of homophony and homophony avoidance in the inflectional systems of the Western Romance languages, including Spanish, Aragonese, Portuguese, and Galician. I have published a textbook on Spanish phonetics called Pronunciación de la lengua española para anglohablantes (Hackett, 2010). On campus, I coordinate the Linguistic Studies minor.

I have traveled extensively in Cuba and have edited a book on 19th century Cuban social history called Social Struggle and Civil Society in Nineteenth Century Cuba (Routledge, 2023). I have also produced documentaries on Cuba, which you can watch on my Cuba in the Raw YouTube channel. I have also published research on the history of tourism.

I have been interviewed on southern English and the Nashville accent by The Tennessean, Newschannel5, and NPR. I have also commented on the Cuban sugarcane industry for the BBC.

Feel free to contact me at rmorris@mtsu.edu.