Introduction - and a message about CDA with Sage

[J.E.Richardson]

Dear all,

Teun has recently invited me to join the list, so I thought that I'd introduce myself to you all. 

I currently work at the dept of Socal Sciences, Loughborough University, in the UK. My principal areas of research interest relate to discourse, journalism and social inequalities, and the ways that these three areas intersect with and affect each other. Initially, for my PhD thesis, this was focused on the way that Islam and Muslims are represented in the British broadsheet press - the elite section of the print media that had, until that time, escaped a dedicated book-length analysis of their outputs on any subject. This produced a book as part of the DAPSAC series for John Benjamins, that I am still quite happy with. 
This interest in anti-Muslim racism has continued to this day, and recently a group of us in the dept (including Mick Billig) completed a study on changing notions of 'Britishness' for the CRE, in which I wrote the section on Islam. The report is available via the CRE site (or from my website below)
Over the years since I finished my thesis, I have become more interested in class based inequalities, the ways that class and race intersect and, in particular, in the ways that the middle class represent themselves and their role as the managers of capital. This is something I've covered very briefly in a recent book, but I'd really like to look into in more depth at a later stage. For further details of any and all my publications (many downloadable!) see:
www.freewebs.com/johnrichardson/index.htm 

In the meantime, I along with Ian Hargreaves, Katie Weir and an international cast of the great and good are launching an online peer reviewed journal, called 'Studies in Language and Capitalism.' The launch edition is due to come out in the next week or so & we're all really happy with the range of articles that we've attracted for it. The URL is at the bottom of this email. Perhaps someone could tell me: Did the call for papers reach this email list? If not, I will forward it to you all. 

And after all that, here is the real reason for the email: I thought I'd pass something on to you all.
 
Chris Rojek, of Sage Publications, contacted me by email about a week ago and asked if I would be interested in writing a book on CDA. I replied saying 'yes, I might be. What did you have in mind?..' and after a bit of back and forth & a phone conversation I decided that the project wasn't for me at this stage. 
 
It seemed that he (or they) were interested in a kind of 'CDA social or discourse theory' book, charting the theoretical roots of CDA (and he mentioned Foucault here a few times), going on to suggest the advantages & disadvantages of the approach and finishing on outlining some issues that CDA may want or need to address in the future. All very worthwhile, I am sure you will agree. But I am currently snowed under with other commitments, so I couldn't do the research necessary to fill some of the gaps in my knowledge of Foucault. 
But I thought 'someone on the list may be in a position to write such a book'. Drop Chris a line if you're interested: chris.rojek at sagepub.co.uk 
Here are the Sage guidleines for writing a book proposal:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/bookAuthEdit.nav 

There may even be the possibility of convincing him to start a CDA book series, as he did seem quite keen.

all the best
John
 
------------------------------------
John E Richardson
Dept of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
Epinal Way 
Loughborough 
Leicestershire LE11 3TU
UK
http://www.languageandcapitalism.info/ 
www.freewebs.com/johnrichardson/index.htm 
Tel +44 01509 228874
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