Issue 1

In 1991, Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) was launched as a scholarly research project when scholars including Norman Fairclough, Teun A. van Dijk, Theo van Leeuwen, Ruth Wodak, among others, gathered to outline ways of doing discourse-analytical research with a view to unravelling how opaque ideological beliefs penetrate public text and talk, ending up (re)producing power inequalities and problems in societies.

More than thirty years later, the Symposium “Reassessing the Critical in CDS” brings together scholars to reflect on ‘hot topics’ related to the approach. These include reflections on CDS as an institutional(ised) field within the structures of modern neoliberal academia, the role of immanent or prognostic critique and separation of CDS from Discourse Studies, self-reflection and positioning in global applications of CDS, among other aspects. A round table on the second day will try and draw lessons from the panels.

The Symposium will take place on 21 and 22 March in Lugano, Switzerland, hosted by the Università della Svizzera Italiana. The symposium will be live-streamed and online participation will be encouraged.

Speakers and discussants come from both inside and outside the CDS tradition: Michal Krzyzanowski, Eleonora Esposito, Samuel Bennett, Viviane de Melo Resende, Bernhard Forchtner, Crispin Thurlow, Theresa Catalano, Dimitris Serafis, Salomi Boukala, Stavros Assimakopoulos, Benno Herzog, Audrey Alejandro, Chris Hart, and Jolanta Drzewiecka.

You can register for online attendance HERE or contact the organisers Samuel Bennett (sbennett@amu.edu.pl) or Dimitris Serafis (dimitrios.serafis@usi.ch) for further information.