Discourses of Brexit and Post-Brexit: National Identity and Nativism (Online-Lecture in English)

Time: 26.11.2020, at 12:00 p.m.
Online lecture
Registration and more information: schluesselkompetenzen(at)uni-saarland.de

This lecture will address the discourses and language of Brexit and post-Brexit. Drawing from the vast and ever-increasing textual (including visual) production regarding the Brexit referendum and its aftermath, Massimiliano Demata will analyse the most important discourse topics and strategies underlying the political and media narratives around Brexit in the light of a critical approach to discourse analysis. The lecture will focus on those structures of language which have foregrounded nativism and national identity central in the context of the populist narratives celebrating Britain’s “independence” and exit from the EU.

Prof. Massimiliano Demata is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin, Italy. He is originally an Oxford graduate and was a Fulbright Scholar at Yale and Indiana University. In 2019-20 he was a visiting professor at Saarland University with a fellowship awarded by DAAD. His main specialisation is Critical Discourse Analysis, focusing specifically on the use of language for ideological purposes in politics and the media in the UK and the USA. He has published a monograph and numerous book chapters and articles for academic journals on the language of Tony Blair, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, as well as on left-wing populism, populism in the digital environment, climate change refugees, and translation and ideology. He is currently working on borders and nationalism.