Subversive Semantics in Political and Cultural Discourse

Subversive Semantics in Political and Cultural Discourse
Author: Gesa Mackenthun
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2023-09-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3839461774

The large-scale use of semantic transfer and inversion as rhetorical tactics is particularly prevalent in right-wing discourses and populist »alternative knowledge« production. The contributors to this volume analyze processes of re-semanticizing received meanings, effectually re-coding those meanings. They investigate to what extent rhetorical maneuvers serve to establish new and powerful belief systems beyond rational and democratic control. In addition to the contemporary rightwing and conspiracy narratives, the contributions examine the discursive fields around conceptions of human nature and the deep past, population politics, gender conceptions, use of land, identity politics, nationhood, and cultural heritage.

Polarization and Deep Contestations

Polarization and Deep Contestations
Author: Tanja A. Börzel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2024-08-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0198916469

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book explores the deep contestations of the liberal script in the contemporary United States from a variety of perspectives. US democracy today is in crisis because of a profound ideological and affective polarization. The chapters in this volume show that Donald Trump's grip on the Republican Party is a symptom and a catalyst, but not the cause, of the contemporary contestations of the liberal script in the US. To discern their major drivers from a longue durée perspective, each chapter takes a step back and asks three main questions: (1) How can we best describe the current contestations of the liberal script in the US, exploring the extent to which the US is unique in comparison to other liberal democracies facing similar contestations? (2) What are the main drivers and root causes that explain the current contestations and the crisis of American democracy they may precipitate? (3) What are the likely consequences for the future of American democracy? The conclusions do not lead us to expect a return to "the norm" of internal contestations of the liberal script that are common in liberal democracies and have characterized the US throughout its history. Political, economic, and cultural polarization is by now deeply entrenched in American society and is eroding "mutual toleration" as the basis of American democracy. In other words, the resilience of US liberal democracy is at stake. It is unlikely that we will see the US liberal script bounce back in the near future. This volume has emerged from research carried out as part of the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script - SCRIPTS", which analyzes the contemporary controversies about liberal ideas, institutions, and practices on the national and international level from a historical, global, and comparative perspective. It connects academic expertise in the social sciences and area studies and collaborates with research institutions in all world regions. Operating since 2019 and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), SCRIPTS unites eight major Berlin-based research institutions: Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), the Hertie School, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the Berlin branch of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), and the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO).

Lotman's Cultural Semiotics and the Political

Lotman's Cultural Semiotics and the Political
Author: Andrey Makarychev
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2017-04-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1783488344

This book aims to inscribe the prominent Soviet semiologist Yurii Lotman into the analysis of political forms and components of power as seen from the context of various Russian-European encounters.

Interaction and Everyday Life

Interaction and Everyday Life
Author: Hisashi Nasu
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2012-08-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739176455

Phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology have many adherents and practitioners throughout the world. The international character of interest in these two areas is exemplified by the papers in this book, which come from scholars in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States. They exemplify the kinds of theoretical and research issues that arise in seeking to explore the social world in ways that respect what Edmund Husserl referred to as “the original right” of all data. The papers were inspired in various ways by the work of George Psathas, Professor Emeritus, Boston University, a renowned phenomenological sociologist and ethnomethodologist and a fundamental contributor to phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology movements both in the United States and throughout the world. The collection consists of three parts: Phenomenology Sociology as an Intellectual Movement, Phenomenological Considerations, and Ethnomethodological Explorations, reflecting areas to which Professor Psathas has made significant contributions. A phenomenological sociology movement in the US is examined as an intellectual movement in itself and as it is influenced by a leader’s participation both as scholar and as teacher. Phenomenological sociology’s efficacy and potential are discussed in terms of a broad range of theoretical and empirical issues: methodology, similarities and differences between phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology, embodied sociality, power, trust, friendship, face-to-face interaction, and interactions between children and adults.Theoretical articles addressing fundamental features of ethnomethodology, its development, and its relation to process-relational philosophy are balanced by empirical articles founded on authors’ original ethnomethodological research—activities of direction-giving and direction-following, accounts for organizational deviance, garden lessons, doing being friends, and the crafting of musical time. Through these papers readers can come to understand the theoretical development of phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology, appreciate their achievements and their promise, and find inspiration to pursue their own work in phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology.

Shakespeare In The New Europe

Shakespeare In The New Europe
Author: Boika Sokolova
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2015-12-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1474247571

Shakespeare is the national poet of many nations besides his own, though a peculiarly subversive one in both east and west. This volume contains a score of essays by scholars from Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain, Ukraine and the USA, written to show how the momentous changes of 1989 were mirrored in the way Shakespeare has been interpreted and produced. The collection offers a valuable record of what Shakespeare has meant in the modern world and some pointers to what he may mean in the future.

Plots: Literary Form and Conspiracy Culture

Plots: Literary Form and Conspiracy Culture
Author: Ben Carver
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000475611

This edited collection contributes to the study of conspiracy culture by analysing the relationship of literary forms to the formation, reception, and transformation of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are narratives, and their narrative form provides the structure within which their ‘readers’ situate themselves when interpreting the world and its history. At the same time, conspiracist interpretations of the world may then be transmediated into works of literature and import popular discourse into narrative structures. The suppression and disappearance of books themselves may generate conspiracy theories and become co-opted into political dissent. Additionally, literary criticism itself is shown to adopt conspiracist modes of interpretation. By examining conspiracy plots as literary plots, with narrative, rhetorical, and symbolic characteristics, this volume is the first systematic study of how conspiracy culture in American and European history is the consequence of its interactions with literature. This book will be of great interest to researchers of conspiracy theories, literature, and literary criticism.

Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies
Author: Lawrence Grossberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2005-06-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 113480525X

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Political Narratosophy

Political Narratosophy
Author: Senka Anastasova
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2023-08-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000915891

Political Narratosophy offers a critically subversive rethinking of the political and philosophical significance of narrative, and why feminist epistemology and feminist social theory matters for the meaning of the ‘self’ and narrativity. Through a re-examination of the notions of democracy and emancipation, Senka Anastasova coins the term ‘political narratosophy’, a unique interpretation of the philosophy of narrative, identification, and disidentification, developed in conversation with philosophers Jacques Rancière, Nancy Fraser, and Paul Ricoeur. Utilizing the author’s own identity as a feminist philosopher has lived in socialist Yugoslavia, post-Yugoslavia, and Macedonia (now North Macedonia), Anastasova explores the fluctuating and disappearing borders around which identity is situated in a country that no longer exists. She expertly reveals how the subject finds, makes and unmakes itself through narrativity, politics, and imagination. Political Narratosophy is an important intervention in political philosophy and a welcome contribution to the historiography on female authors who lived through twentieth century communism and its aftermath. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of political theory, philosophy, women’s studies, international relations, identity studies, (comparative) literary studies, and aesthetics studies.

Political Correctness

Political Correctness
Author: Geoffrey Hughes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 4
Release: 2011-09-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1444360299

Political Correctness “Geoffrey Hughes has brought together with great panache the very many manifestations of political correctness, both absurd and vicious, and shown how they express a single collective mind-set. His book establishes beyond doubt that there is such a phenomenon, that it has become dominant in our culture, and that it represents a growing tendency to censor public debate and to prevent people from questioning orthodoxies which we all know to be false.” Roger Scruton, American Enterprise Institute “What a joy this book is! Hughes’ study traces, with unflagging zest, the modern history of PC. Sumptuous in data, in judgment precise, this is the latest and fullest of Hughes’ series on the social history of language.” Walter Nash, Professor Emeritus, University of Nottingham Political Correctness is now an everyday phrase and part of the modern mindset. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but its own meaning constantly shifts. Its surprising origins have led to it becoming integrated into contemporary culture in ways that are both idealistic and ridiculous. Originally grounded in respect for difference and sensitivity to suffering, it has often become a distraction and even a silencer of genuine issues, provoking satire and parody. In this carefully researched, thought-provoking book, Geoffrey Hughes examines the trajectory of political correctness and its impact on public life. Exploring the origins, progress, content, and style of PC, Hughes’ journey leads us through authors as diverse as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Swift; Philip Larkin, David Mamet, and J.M. Coetzee; from nursery rhymes to Spike Lee films. Focusing on the historical, semantic, and cultural aspects of political correctness, this outstanding and unique work will intrigue anyone interested in this ongoing debate.

Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication

Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication
Author: Kerry Mullan
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2019-10-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9813299835

This book is the first in a three-volume set that celebrates the career and achievements of Cliff Goddard, a pioneer of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach in linguistics. In addition, it explores ethnopragmatics and conversational humour, with a further focus on semantic analysis more broadly. Often considered the most fully developed, comprehensive and practical approach to cross-linguistic and cross-cultural semantics, Natural Semantic Metalanguage is based on evidence that there is a small core of basic, universal meanings (semantic primes) that can be expressed in all languages. It has been used for linguistic and cultural analysis in such diverse fields as semantics, cross-cultural communication, language teaching, humour studies and applied linguistics, and has reached far beyond the boundaries of linguistics into ethnopsychology, anthropology, history, political science, the medical humanities and ethics.