With the dual aim of exploring how digital culture provides a new distribution environment for shifters and showing how shifters distribute speech in digital culture, the lecture considers slogans such as ‘Not in our name’, ‘Je suis Charlie’, ‘MeToo’ and ‘People Like You’. In all cases, the shifter is a pronoun – ‘our’, ‘je’, ‘me’ and ‘you’, and in all cases the analysis focuses on how conceptual personae emerge in cultures of participation, paying special attention to the kinds of speech such figures can occasion. It is suggested that what matters is whether participating in a speech event necessarily means you are a part of the event. The disjunction between the two raises issues of social and political inclusion and exclusion, as well as challenges our ideas of truth.

The seminar is public, and we welcome everybody. 

Programme: Aesthetic Seminars Spring 2019