Project: The Crisis & Discourse Blog

Editorial team: Amelie Kutter (founding editor), Salomi Boukala, Galvão Debelle dos Santos, Mona Lou Günnewig, Kathrin Kaufhold, Raili Marling, Federico Masson, Alexandra Polyzou

IT services: Nerdline Media Solutions

Financial support: Marie Skłodowska Curie Project ‘Reconfigurations’ (PCIG14-GA-2013-632071)

Crises are rarely just nature-given. They surface when humans construct calamities as moments of crisis: as moments of decisive intervention, in which chances for livelihood and collective action are being distributed anew and in which established social-political institutions undergo change. Language and discourse are instrumental and constitutive in making a situation a crisis: they are the means by which social actors define a crisis; at the same time, they limit the ways of how a crisis and its resolution can be imagined in a specific conjecture.

The crisis & discourse blog is a platform for people interested in disentangling and reflecting upon forms of language use and terminology that emerge or reinforce in times of crisis. The major concern is to reveal how recurrent forms of language use and crisis discourse contribute to the entrenchment or transformation of social hierarchies and open up or close down prospects for collective action. We believe that sharing knowledge on recurrent features of crisis debate will help us to become more resilient to the mediatized drama of crisis and more aware of its social and political implications. The genre of a blog post forces us to put thoughts in a concise form and accessible language. It is apt to promptly respond to current trends and engage with the subject of crisis discourse beyond the confines of Academia.

To discourse researchers and attentive observers the blog offers the opportunity to share with colleagues and the broader public fresh insights in observations and research on features of crisis discourse. Researchers and students have already worked on contributions that will be published successively in thematic issues.

Calls and events

2021-12-04 Workshop on crises and crisis narratives in Southwest Europe directed by Amelie Kutter and hosted by Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes

2021-12-02 and 2021-12-03 Authors’ workshop on the Covid crisis discourse special issue of the Crisis Discourse Blog directed by the speakers of the DVPW discourse group and hosted by Viadrina Institute of European Studies.

2021-10-07 Call for contributions to a Covid crisis discourse special issue of the Crisis Discourse Blog (end of call 17 Oct 2021) and authors’ workshop (2-3 Dec 2021)