[Linganth] AAA CFP: Spectral speech: The voices of political pasts in contemporary discourse

[Nora Tyeklar]

Hello,

This is a call for paper abstracts for the AAA panel outlined below. If you
are interested in participating, please send a title of no more than 150
characters and an abstract of no more than 1,500 characters to
nora.tyeklar at maine.edu by Monday, April 14, 2025.

sincerely,

Nora


*Spectral speech: The voices of political pasts in contemporary discourse*

Panel abstract: From the echoes of long-dead political leaders in populist
rhetoric to the revival of past ideological movements in contemporary
policy debates, language becomes a conduit for haunting. This panel
explores how past ideologies and figures persist in contemporary speech to
reveal the mechanisms through which the past remains embedded in the
present. As Agha (2007) argues, registers of speech acquire social value
through repeated association with particular identities and histories,
allowing political actors to draw on these semiotic resources to evoke
legitimacy, nostalgia, or resistance. In discourse, the past is made
present—historical movements continue to shape the ideological landscape,
and speakers invoke the words of past figures to justify, resist, or
reshape contemporary power structures.

Political ghosts manifest in multiple ways. Leaders may invoke the language
of past revolutions and appropriate the voices of long-gone figures to
legitimize their agendas. In other cases, the rhetoric of past regimes
resurfaces in contemporary politicians’ language, maintaining ideological
continuities. Whether explicitly cited or subtly embedded in discourse,
historical ideologies continue to shape public debates by reinforcing or
challenging dominant narratives. This panel brings together scholars to
examine how these political legacies animate language and show how
historical ideas influence modern governance, protest movements, and public
memory.

We ask: How do political actors invoke historical figures or ideologies to
gain legitimacy? How do citizens, activists, and marginalized communities
engage with or reframe these hauntings in their own speech? How does the
persistence of past political discourse shape public consciousness and
political action? In line with work on the politics of communicability
(Briggs and Mantini-Briggs, 2003), we ask how discourse circulates and
acquires authority across publics and historical moments. Drawing on
ethnographic and discourse-analytic approaches, our papers will examine the
influence of political speech in diverse contexts, including
post-authoritarian societies, sites of ongoing colonial struggle, and
nations grappling with the legacies of racial and economic injustice.

This panel understands ghosts as both disruptive and productive forces.
Political language is imbued with the presence of past struggles,
injustices, and aspirations. Political legacies are not merely echoes but
active forces that shape contemporary realities. In an era of rising
nationalisms,
renewed conspiracy theories, and continuing struggles over historical
memory, recognizing the ghostly in speech enables us to critically engage
with the unfinished work of justice and transformation. Building on
scholarship in legal discourse and memory (Hirsch, 2006), the ideological
circulation of speech across historical moments (Schieffelin, 2007), and
studies of voice, entextualization, and cross-chronotopic alignment
(Perrino & Lempert, 2007), we examine how language resurrects, distorts,
and reconfigures political pasts in the present.

By focusing on the role of discourse in political ideologies, this panel
contributes to broader discussions about anthropology’s role in confronting
contemporary crises. We consider how anthropologists might intervene in
these hauntings—whether by challenging the revival of oppressive pasts or
by amplifying the voices of those whose struggles for justice remain
unfinished. Ghosts offer us the chance to reflect on our fears and hopes,
but they also provide insight into the ways the past refuses to be buried
and continues to speak through the voices of the living.
Works referenced:

Agha, A. (2007). *Language and social relations*. Cambridge University
Press.

Briggs, C. L., & Mantini-Briggs, C. (2003). *Stories in the time of
cholera: Racial profiling during a medical nightmare*. University of
California Press.

Hirsch, S. F. (2006). *In the moment of greatest calamity: Terrorism,
grief, and a victim’s quest for justice*. Princeton University Press.

Perrino, S., & Lempert, M. (2007). Entextualization and the ends of
temporality. *Language & Communication, 27*(3), 205–211.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2007.01.005

Schieffelin, B. B. (2007). Found in translating: Reflexive language across
time and texts in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea. In M. Makihara & B. B.
Schieffelin (Eds.), *Consequences of contact* (pp. 140–161). Oxford
University Press.


-- 
Nora Tyeklar, PhD
*Post-Doctoral Scholar for Transforming Lives Initiatives *

*University of Maine at Augusta*
46 University Drive
Augusta, ME 04330
207-621-3282
www.uma.ed <http://www.uma.edu/>u <http://www.uma.edu/>
nora.tyeklar at maine.edu <pamela.macrae at maine.edu>
UMA's Heritage Month Calendar
<https://www.uma.edu/about/dei/heritage-calendar/>Social Media Manager, Society
for Linguistic Anthropolog <https://linguisticanthropology.org>y
<https://linguisticanthropology.org/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20250409/fd26d872/attachment.htm>