SALT Virtual Lecture Series Presents Dr. Ruth Wodak

SALT Virtual Lecutre Series proudly presents Dr. Ruth Wodak Friday, September 16, 2022 from 10:30-11:45 AM EST. The title of the talk will be “Normalizing Far-right Discourses: Analyzing the Micro-politics of Far-right Populism.”

Abstract

Many context-dependent socio-political, economic, cultural, and historical factors, apart from the performance of allegedly charismatic leaders, lead to the rise of the populist far-right, supported by conservative mainstream parties and the manipulative use of (social) media (Wodak 2021). Formerly taboo subjects and expressions in mainstream discourse are being accepted more and more (‘normalization’) and have become part and parcel of mainstream politics and the culturalization of exclusion. Such normalization goes hand in hand with a certain ‘shamelessness’: the limits of the sayable are shifting regarding both the  frequency of lies and the violating of discourse and politeness conventions – as well as regarding repeated attacks on salient democratic institutions, for example of freedom of the press, independence of justice, and so forth. Discursive strategies of provocation, blame avoidance, denial, Manichean division, victim-perpetrator reversal as well as eristic argumentation and conspiracy theories dominate official communication, accompanied by ever more nativist nationalism and the racialization of  space. As will be illustrated, such strategies have also penetrated pop-culture and symbolic politics.

About the Speaker

Dr. Ruth Wodak is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, UK, and affiliated to the University of Vienna. In June 2021, she was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for her lifetime achievements. She is member of the editorial board of a range of linguistic journals and coeditor of the journals Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Studies, and Language and Politics. Her research interests focus on discourse studies; gender studies; identity politics and the politics of the past; political communication and populism; prejudice and discrimination; and on ethnographic methods of linguistic field work.