DeXusChange
The title of the summer school stands for discourse
nexus change. The summer school is a space for transdisciplinary and
interdisciplinary research and the exchange (nexus) of ideas in order to
promote reflection, action, social justice and social change in relation to the emerging
crises of the Twenty First Century. We are of the strong conviction that
discourse studies needs to be a part of, and can play an important role
in that nexus.
Crises - what crises!?
The thematics of this summer school is prompted by the recent
 emergence of a
set of interlocking global crises – including climate, energy, food, water,
finance – which demands a renewed interdisciplinary effort to understand how to
mediate the future, the past and the present in ways that attend to equity,
justice and rights. The aim is to bring together people investigating and
promoting social change and transformation with an explicit focus on the role of
discourse in shaping a just future (and the past). Discourse is understood as
encompassing an interdisciplinary perspective on text, talk, discourse, genre,
narrative, archive, document, image and rhetoric in all their modal, social and
cultural forms, not only in terms of representation but also action and
practice.
A bibliography of the
key literature relevant to this summer school is available. The list
also includes the preparatory readings recommended by the
summer school guests.
The idea behind the summer school's thematic subtitle
"shaping discourse to come" is a promise of a discourse 'to come', a
promise that is both an injunction and yet unfulfillable. It derives from
Derrida's discussion of "democracy-to-come", which he proposes in the The Politics of
Friendship (1997). Derrida discusses his conceptual critique of democracy in
an
interview with Geoffrey Bennington. Derrida elaborates:
So when
I speak of a 'democracy to come', I don't mean a future democracy,
a new regime, a new organisation of nation-states (although this
may be hoped for) but I mean this 'to come': the promise of an authentic
democracy which is never embodied in what we call democracy. This
is a way of going on criticising what is everywhere given today
under the name of democracy in our societies. This doesn't mean
that 'democracy to come' will be simply a future democracy correcting
or improving the actual conditions of the so-called democracies,
it means first of all that this democracy we dream of is linked
in its concept to a promise. The idea of a promise is inscribed
in the idea of a democracy: equality, freedom, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press - all these things are inscribed as promises
within democracy. Democracy is a promise. That is why it is a more
historical concept of the political - it's the only concept of a
regime or a political organisation in which history, that is the
endless process of improvement and perfectibility, is inscribed
in the concept. So, it's a historical concept through and through,
and that's why I call it 'to come': it is a promise and will remain
a promise, but 'to come' means also not a future but that it has
'to come' as a promise, as a duty, that is 'to come' immediately.
We don't have to wait for future democracy to happen, to appear,
we have to do right here and now what has to be done for it. That's
an injunction, an immediate injunction, no delay. Which doesn't
mean that it will take the form of a regime; but if we dissociate
democracy from the name of a regime we can then give this name 'democracy'
to any kind of experience in which there is equality, justice, equity,
respect for the singularity of the Other at work, so to speak -
then it's democracy here and now; but of course this implies that
we do not confine democracy to the political in the classical sense,
or to the nation- state, or to citizenship.
Discussions in discourse studies that might bear on
this include:
- Faber, Brenton (2007). Discourse, Technology &
Change. London: Continuum.
- Fairclough, Norman (1996). Technologisation of
Discourse. In Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen Rosa & Coulthard, Malcolm
(Eds.), Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse
Analysis, London: Routledge.
- Flowerdew, John (2008). Critical Discourse
Analysis and Strategies of Resistance. In Bhatia, Vijay, Flowerdew,
John & Jones, Rodney H. (Eds.), Advances in Discourse Studies,
Abingdon: Routledge: 195-210.
- Friedrich, Patricia (2007). English for Peace:
Toward a Framework of Peace Sociolinguistics. World Englishes
26(1): 72-83.
- Martin, J.R. (2004). Positive Discourse Analysis:
Solidarity and Change. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 49:
179-202.
- Martin, J.R. (2007). Comment [on Frederich's
Peace Sociolinguistics]. World Englishes 26(1): 84-86.
- Torfing, Jacob (2005). Discourse Theory:
Achievements, Arguments, and Challenges. In Howarth, David & Torfing,
Jacob (Eds.), Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity,
Policy and Governance, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
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