Trumpism and the crisis of democracy
Data analysis workshop led by Ruth Wodak
With input by Greg Myers, Johnny Unger, and other colleagues from LAEL and beyond

Thursday 23rd February
3-6pm
Frankland Colloquium Room

The campaign for the US presidency and subsequent election of Donald Trump have already, just weeks after he assumed office, led to sweeping changes in political discourse in the US. The “rules of the game” appear to be changing, with the very democratic institutions that are supposed to provide “checks and balances” on the power of any one part of the US political apparatus being restructured in previously unimaginable ways. The response to each new action by Trump and his cabinet, both domestically and internationally has displayed much of the same polarisation that characterised the election campaign itself.

In this workshop, we will have a chance to look in detail at and discuss some key political texts by or about Trump and his actions. We will examine how the discourse-historical approach to critical discourse studies can be used to analyse this sort of data, and how we can link detailed linguistic analysis to broader social critique, particularly in times of political crisis.

We will circulate the texts for analysis closer to the time, but in the meantime, if you would like to take part in the workshop, you are asked to read the following article from The Atlantic, a monthly US magazine, and chapter 6 of Ruth’s book “The Politics of Fear”. This is available as an ebook at Lancaster library, but please get in touch if you have trouble accessing it.