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Politics of Metaphors in Action: Covid-19 in the Recent Slovenian Political Discourse

11 May 2021, 5:00 pm–6:30 pm

Slovenia

A UCL SSEES Study of Central Europe Seminar Series Event with Professor Jernej Pikalo, University of Ljubljana

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Organiser

UCL SSEES

Managing of the covid-19 epidemics brought back to the Slovenian political discourse metaphors of “fight”, “struggle”, “strategies of fight”, etc. Concepts and metaphors, mainly from the military vocabularies, were introduced and rapidly started to dominate the public discourse. The discourse was used to set the stage for political measures Slovenian government took, that were relevant to covid-19, but also at the same time reflected new political agenda of authoritarian tendencies already seen in some countries of South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. The aim of the seminar is to analyse the concepts and metaphors used by actors in the Slovenian political arena, their ontological creativity and production of knowledge about covid-19. The seminar will focus on linguistic, communicative, and political aspects of creative use of metaphors.   

Image credit: Bram van Geerenstein on Unpslash

 

About the Speaker

Pikalo
 

Dr. Jernej Pikalo is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Ljubljana and former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Science and Sports of Slovenia. He was educated at the University of Ljubljana and the University of Warwick (UK) and has authored or co-authored four books and more than forty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has worked across disciplinary boundaries in international teams at the Bristol University, European Inter-University Centre in Venice, Bifrost University, University of Washington in Seattle and Hosei University in Tokyo. He managed and academically led projects financed by the European Union and Council of Europe, mainly on civic education in the global era, globalisation and governance. He is an active member of the Council of UNESCO International Bureau of Education and ITU’s Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development. His efforts to establish first global International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence came to fruition in 2020. Being a keen runner and cyclist makes him appreciative of nature and his own limitations. Frequently contributing to Slovene media, he lives in Ljubljana with his wife and two children.