About CriDis
Crises are rarely just nature-given. They surface when humans conceive of a difficult situation as a moment of crisis and crisis intervention, using language and discourse.
The agenda of Crisis Discourse Blog
Crisis Discourse Blog (CriDis) is a platform for people interested in discourses of crisis. We offer accessible, but scientifically rigorous, analyses of current crisis debate. We look into framings, forms of language use, images and memes, ambiguous concepts and larger discourse configurations that suggest tackling a crisis in specific ways. We also use photography and illustration to engage with crisis debate. We believe that discourse analysis and artist intervention can help us to navigate the mediatised drama of crisis and see through its social and political implications.
Slow blogging and rigorous analysis
Crisis Discourse Blog is slow and focused. It takes a contemplating posture, aims for rigorous analysis, and is little interactive. This is a deliberate choice.
- Slow: new issues will come out only twice a year, but they will be compiled with great care.
- Focused: posts fitting the topic of a call for contributions and the formats of the rubrics will be considered.
- Contemplating: the blog focusses on careful observation, critical reading, and reflection, instead of on opinion, commentary or recommendation.
- Rigorous: despite engaging with contemporary crisis debate, posts to this blog adhere to rigorous, methodically transparent and scientifically reasoned analysis.
- Little interactive: as we are unable to edit commentaries or control for the netiquette, there will be no debate with readers and no public commentary function. Please feel invited, though, to join our public events and discussion that will be held whenever a new issue is launched.
Rubrics on Crisis Discourse Blog
To discourse researchers and attentive observers the blog offers the opportunity to share with colleagues and the broader public fresh insights in observations and research on features of crisis discourse. Crisis Discourse Blog provides the following rubrics and genres of critical reading:
- Snapshots offer a brief and pinpoint discourse analysis of a specific, substantive feature of current or historic crisis debate. They usually draw on running research projects and offer a preview of the material analysed or highlight a specific aspect of already published work.
- Slippery Concepts point to the ambivalent use of a specific term that has become widespread or backgrounded in relation to a current crisis. They use etymology and conceptual history to historically situate the term. They explore which narrowing or transformation the term has undergone in current debate and what alternative views can be gained when exploring its backgrounded meanings.
- Reviews systematically review existing academic, literary or artwork on a topic. They ponder enlightening insights provided therein against shortcomings and consider how these works, themselves, reproduce a certain reading of the crisis.
- Heuristic Tools present and critically review concepts or categories from discourse research, such as crisis narratives, that promise to facilitate the analysis of crisis debate.
- Editorials are used by editorial board members and guest editors to introduce to an issue and outline main conclusions on the insights generated by the blog posts.
For more information, see the page For Authors and, for examples of already published rubrics, see the subpages of Rubrics.
Get involved
Everybody, who engages with crisis debates and is experienced in discourse analysis or artist intervention, is invited to share their insights with the specialist community and the wider audience on Crisis Discourse Blog. Contributions that relate to one of the running or past calls and that fit one of the rubrics and the editorial requirements of Crisis Discourse Blog are very welcome.