36.402, Calls: Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics: Metaphor, nation and (perma)crisis: Conceptualizing nationhood and group belonging in the ‘new normal’ Europe (Jrnl)

Fri Jan 31 05:05:08 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-402. Fri Jan 31 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.402, Calls: Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics: Metaphor, nation and (perma)crisis: Conceptualizing nationhood and group belonging in the ‘new normal’ Europe (Jrnl)

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Date: 31-Jan-2025
From: Ksenija Bogetic [ksenija at zrc-sazu.si]
Subject: Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics: Metaphor, nation and (perma)crisis: Conceptualizing nationhood and group belonging in the ‘new normal’ Europe (Jrnl)

Metaphor, nation and (perma)crisis: Conceptualizing nationhood and
group belonging in the ‘new normal’ Europe
Economic and social crises have long been associated with a rise in
nationalism and national reconceptualization (Bergmann 2020). While
the realities of the third decade of the 21st century seem to bring a
change in conceptualizing crisis itself, as captured by the recent
neologism of permacrisis – a time of multiple and parallel crises,
marked by a transnational pandemic, longstanding global climate
crisis, and disturbing new waves of conflict – permacrisis as a ‘new
normal’ has strongly resonated with politics of nationhood. In the
case of Europe, in parallel with waning popular support for
integration (Daniele et al. 2020), a revival of nationalism has
interlocked with a major populist backsliding, in what scholars now
variously dub a new nationalist, neo-nationalist and ‘coronationalist’
era (Bouckaert 2020).
Scholarship on metaphor, as the key conceptual tool of framing the
unknown, has a critical role in tracing these shifting conceptions of
collectivity, nationhood, nationalism and solidarity in times of
intensifying crises. Since the Covid-19 onset to this moment, we have
seen that these are far from uniform or predictable across space and
time; take the Eurosceptic ‘vaccine nationalism’ in the UK (Caliendo
2022), or the conspiracist nationalism in militarizing Russia
(Leitenberg 2020), all of which are profoundly entangled in
conceptions of multiple ‘outside’ threats and crises. Above all,
discourses of crisis have also highlighted alternative imaginations of
society, illustrated by metaphors like resetting the world, bringing
down fortress Europe, or quarantening certain fathers of the nation.
Today, as the perspective of permacrisis captures a continual time of
turbulence and conflict, national conceptualization unavoidably gains
new shapes through a whole prism of discourses of conspiracy,
authority, truth, and (anti-)science, where metaphors carry the key
potential to re-imagine collectivity in the coming times.
The present book aims to contribute to the scholarly investigation of
metaphor, nationhood and nationalism, by specifically focusing on
metaphorical constructions of nationhood in different parts of Europe
in relation to the permacrisis as seen from 2020 onwards. The work
will thus expand the rich line of research on metaphor and
nation(alism) that has long formed a core of discursive approaches to
metaphor (Musolff 2016, 2021; Šarić & Stanojević 2019), but will bring
it together with crisis discourse scholarship. The contributions will
zoom in on the shifting conceptions of nationhood in various forms of
crisis discourse, while also looking at how the multiple crises of our
day interrelate in shaping the contexts and consequences of
nationalism. At the same time, we hope to expand our perspectives on
the role of language in constructing national division, cohesion and
solidarity in times of crisis more broadly.
Call for contributions:
We invite submissions that explore the use of metaphors in crisis
discourses across Europe, with a focus on nationhood, nationalism, and
related constructions of group belonging. On one hand, this may
involve metaphorical representations of nations, nationhood and other
forms of collectivity within particular crisis contexts. On the other,
analyses of metaphorical representations of the crises themselves
(climate, conflict, pandemic, ‘migration’ crisis, etc.) more broadly,
where representations of collectivity and nationhood are observed in
overarching narratives, metaphor scenarios, prominent topoi, or other
aspects of discourse, are equally appropriate.
Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to, the
following:
- BODY/PERSON/FAMILY etc. metaphors for the nation and their
implications in different types of crisis discourse
- WAR metaphors and national representation
- WAR metaphors in areas of current war or earlier / looming conflict
- COMPETITION of nations metaphors in political/media discourse or
citizens’ responses
- representations of nationhood and collectivity in a diachronic
perspective: changes in metaphor use and national(ist) discourse over
time
- crisis intersections in discourse: nationhood as shaped by multiple
crises (e.g. Brexit, Ukraine war and other military conflicts,
financial crisis, narratives of migration, etc.)
- conspiracy discourses and metaphors of national defense
- metaphors of national defense and legitimization of conflict
- metaphor and crisis utopias: imaging a new world and transnational
solidarity
- resistance to metaphor, metaphor negotiation, contestation,
subversion, irony: contesting/rethinking perceptions of collectivity
and polarization.
Overall, via context-based analysis, the papers should contribute to
understanding what particular metaphors may reveal about the
conceptualization of national divisions and transnational solidarity
in times of (multiple) crises, how these representations change, get
negotiated, or established via discourse. The approach of Critical
Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004) is expected to be
particularly suited to this aim, but other discursive and
interdisciplinary critical approaches to metaphor are also fitting.
Please submit your abstract proposals (approx. 500 words) to
ksenija at zrc-sazu.si..no later than March 1, 2025. Notification of
acceptance will be sent within three weeks after the abstract
deadline.
The expected length of the full chapters will be between 6,000 and
8,500 words. Upon acceptance of the abstract, authors will have a
minimum of eight months to complete their paper. All other details
will be sent following the abstract evaluations.

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis
                     Sociolinguistics

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