CURSOS Y TALLERES
CURSOS Y TALLERES
COLLOQUIUM: DISCOURSES OF DOMINATION AND RESISTANCE
The Centre of Discourse Studies invites you to attend this colloquium on discourses of domination and resistance, with guest speakers Samuel Bennett (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) and Cinzia Padovani (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale).
Date and Time:
November 12th
10:30am - 12:30pm (CET/UCT+1 )
Location: Online and in person at the Centre of Discourse Studies (Plaça del Bonsuccés, 7, entresuelo 6, 08001 Barcelona)
Language: English
Please register to secure your spot and receive the access information.
TALKS
Samuel Bennett (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań), "Myths and silences of empire in British immigration discourse"
In this presentation, I talk about the myth that British society is (and has always been) a ‘good’ country that accepts migrants with open arms. From a basis in critical discourse studies (CDS) and integrating postcolonial and decolonial theories I show how the myths the UK tells itself are stable across time and genre, deployed in different contexts, and historically rooted. I show how these are selective narratives of history (Flood 2002; Forchtner & Özvatan 2022) that integrate existing beliefs into a cohesive story about the UK that is then used to legitimise ever-more exclusionary immigration policy. I start by suggesting how CDS can learn from, and be combined with, post-colonial theories (e.g. Spivak 1988; Mbembe 2019) and then explain the 4 key myths found in migration discourse in the UK. Next, I show how these current trends all contain echoes of past discourses in, inter alia history textbooks, newspapers, parliamentary debates and NGOs. I argue that the migrant Other – and by extension British ethnic minorities – has been racialised, silenced, deleted, hidden and instrumentalised, and that this in turn impacts upon societal issues of integration and social cohesion. References Bennett, S. (2025). Myths and Sanctioned Ignorance in British Immigration Discourse Towards a Linguistic Sociology of Absences. Oxford University Press. Flood, C. (2002). Political Myth. Routledge. Forchtner, B., & Özvatan, Ö. (2022). De/legitimisation through the performance of crises: The far-right Alternative for Germany on “climate hysteria”, “corona-hysteria” and the “centralist Moloch” EUrope. Journal of Language and Politics, 21(2), 208–232. Mbembe, A. (2019). Necropolitics. Duke University Press. Spivak, G. (1988). In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. Methuen.
Cinzia Padovani (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale), "The Discourse on Anti-Fascism in Italy and the United States: An Analysis of Corriere della Sera and The New York Times"
In this project, I explore the discursive representation of anti-fascism in the public discourse in Italy and the United States of America. The comparison between the two countries can be illuminating: Even though in recent history the two national governments have shared a fascination with far-right politics, the different political cultures, extreme right-wing positions, and media systems, make the anti-fascist struggle and discourse in comparative perspective a significant endeavor. By comparing and contrasting the two experiences, this proposed research aims at highlighting similarities, differences, and points of contact. The topic is also timely: the White House’s attacks against anti-fascism during the Trump era, and the continuous presence of the extreme right in various western countries, have revived the attention towards the issue of anti-fascism. These following questions lead my research: What is anti-fascism in the twenty first century? How is it represented? How does it change in different contexts? The analysis is based on a data set of selected news items from two leading news sources: Il Corriere della Sera in Italy, and The New York Times in the U.S.A.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Samuel Bennett is an Assistant Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan. His research centres around discursive constructions of migrant integration, (non)belonging, exclusion, and legitimisation, as well as anti-racism and critical pedagogy. He is currently Chair of the CADAAD network and co-editor of Journal of Language & Politics. He is the author of Myths and Sanctioned Ignorance in British British Immigration Discourse (2025) and Constructions of Migrant Integration in British Public Discourse (2018), along with several chapters in edited volumes and articles in respected journals, including Critical Discourse Studies and Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies. He has taught CDS courses to students and researchers throughout Europe for over a decade. Away from academia, he has been involved in immigration, community building, and empowerment charities for over twenty years, including as a research intern at the British Refugee Council, a refugee mentor, development education coordinator, and a board member of Migrant Info Point, an immigration charity in Poland.
Cinzia Padovani is Professor of Critical Media Studies at the School of Media Arts, Southern Illinois University. Her research interests include the relationship between media and political power; extreme right social movements; critical theories and methodologies of media and discourse analysis. Dr. Padovani’s publications have appeared in numerous international peer‐reviewed journals, including The Journal of Alternative and Community Media, The International Journal of Communication, The Journal of Language and Politics, Discourse and Communication, Television and New Media, among others. Her latest contribution on Fascist discourse, co-authored with John Richardson for The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, 2nd edition (John Flowerdew & John E Richardson Eds), is in print as of Autumn 2026.