Crisis. An interdisciplinary conversation on a keyword of our historical conjuncture

This collaborative essay aims to provide a theoretical and discursive background to the thematic issue of Languages Cultures Mediation – LCM devoted to exploring crisis/crises. It consists, therefore, of two parts. The first one starts with a few considerations on the current conjuncture, in which “crisis” stands out as a powerful keyword which is ubiquitous across mainstream communication and public debate. It continues by foregrounding some thoughts on the definitions of this term and its deceptive intuitiveness, concurring to highlight some slippages and shifts in its usage and meanings over time. Finally, it attempts to stylize some assumptions, premises, perspectives and theoretical issues concerning the conceptualization of crisis and how to interpret it, including narratives and memory work. The second part of the essay provides a review and a discussion of theoretical perspectives and interpretive tools for addressing more specifically the category of crisis as a discursive, affective and imaginative construction. In the process, it engages in a conversation with some recent analytical approaches to crisis pertaining, mostly, to the conceptual and ideological arenas of linguistics, critical discourse analysis, narrative and metaphor studies, political communication.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination, edited by Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press [Engl. transl. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist].

Bebermeyer, Renate. 1981. "'Krise' in der Krise. Eine Vokabel im Sog ihrer Komposita und auf dem Weg zum leeren Schlagwort". Muttersprache. Zeitschrift zur Pflege und Erforschung der deutschen Sprache 91: 345-359.

Beck, Ulrich. 2006. "Living in the World Risk Society". Economy and Society 35 (3): 329-345.

https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140600844902

Beck, Ulrich. 2009. "Critical Theory of World Risk Society: A Cosmopolitan Vision". Constellations 16 (1): 3-22.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00534.x

Bergman-Rosamond, Annika, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Mo Hamza, Jeff Hearn, Vasna Ramasar, and Helle Rydstrom. 2022. "The Case for Interdisciplinary Crisis Studies". Global Discourse: A Developmental Journal of Research in Politics and International Relations 12 (3-4): 465-486.

Best, Jacqueline. 2009. "How to Make a Bubble: Toward a Cultural Political Economy of the Financial Crisis". International Political Sociology 3 (4): 461-465.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2009.00086_5.x

Boletsi, Maria, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Kasia Mika, and Ksenia Robbe, eds. 2021a. (Un)timely Crisis: Chronotopes and Critique. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74946-0

Boletsi, Maria, Kasia Mika, Ksenia Robbe, and Natashe Lemos Dekker. 2021b. "Introduction". In (Un)timely Crisis: Chronotopes and Critique, edited by Maria Boletsi, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Kasia Mika, and Ksenia Robbe, 1-11. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74946-0_1

Boletsi, Maria, Joost de Bloois, Cornelia Gräbner, Janna Houwen, Dimitris Papani¬kolaou, and Georgios Tsagdis. 2021c. "Grammars of Crisis". In (Un)timely Crisis: Chronotopes and Critique, edited by Maria Boletsi, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Kasia Mika, and Ksenia Robbe, 23-49. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74946-0_3

Brambilla, Chiara. 2015. "Exploring the Critical Potential of the Borderscapes Concept". Geopolitics 20 (1): 14-34.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2014.884561

Brassett, James, and Chris Clarke. 2012. "Performing the Sub-Prime Crisis: Trauma and the Financial Event". International Political Sociology 6: 4-20.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00148.x

Brassett, James, and Nick Vaughan-Williams. 2012. "Crisis Is Governance: Subprime, the Traumatic Event, and Bare Life". Global Society 26 (1): 19-42.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2011.629988

Cassis, Youssef, and Catherine R. Schenk. 2021. "Memories and Uses of the Past". In Remembering and Learning from Financial Crises, edited by Youssef Cassis and Catherine R. Schenk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198870906.001.0001

Castree, Noel. 2010. "The 2007-09 Financial Crisis: Narrating and Politicising a Calamity". Human Geography 3 (1): 34-48.

https://doi.org/10.1177/194277861000300103

Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2019. Metaphors of Brexit. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28768-9

Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2021. Metaphors of Coronavirus: Invisible Enemy or Zombie Apocalypse? Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85106-4

Chouliaraki, Lilie. 2006. The Spectatorship of Suffering. London: Sage.

https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446220658

Chouliaraki, Lilie. 2013. The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism. London: Polity.

Ciocca, Pierluigi. 1992. "Crisi economica e finanziaria". In Enciclopedia delle scienze sociali. Roma: Treccani. [21/05/2022].

https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/crisi_%28Enciclopedia-delle-scienze-sociali%29/

Crouch, Colin. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism. London: Polity.

Cuttica, Cesare, László Kontler, and Clara Maier. 2021. "Introduction". In Crisis and Renewal in the History of European Political Thought, edited by Cesare Cuttica, László Kontler, and Clara Maier, 1-22. Leiden - Boston: Brill.

https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004466876

De Caro Mario, e Maurizio Ferraris. 2012. Bentornata realtà. Il nuovo realismo in discussione. Torino: Einaudi.

De Cauwer, Stijn, ed. 2018. Critical Theory at a Crossroads: Conversations on Resistance in Times of Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press (Kindle edition).

https://doi.org/10.7312/de-c18678-002

Dekker Lemos, Natashe, Arvid van Dam, Ignacia Arteaga, Henry Llewellyn, Pafsanias Karathanasis, and Rebecca Bryan. 2021. "Navigating Chronic Crises". In (Un)timely Crisis: Chronotopes and Critique, edited by Maria Boletsi, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Kasia Mika, and Ksenia Robbe, 13-21. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74946-0_2

Della Sala, Vincent. 2010. "Crisis, What Crisis? Narrating Crisis and Decline in the European Union". Conference paper for the European Consortium for Political Research Fifth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics (Porto, Portugal, June 23-26, 2010). Unpublished.

De Michelis, Lidia. 2017. "Challenging Dominant Discourses of Risk and Crisis: Verbatim Drama and the 2011 British Riots". In Crisis, Risks and New Regionalisms in Europe: Emergency Diasporas and Borderlands, edited by Cecile Sandten, Claudia Gualtieri, Roberto Pedretti, and Eike Kronshage, 255-272. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

Diffractions. 2013. "Editorial". Diffractions: Graduate Journal for the Study of Culture 1: 1-7. [21/04/2022].

https://revistas.ucp.pt/index.php/diffractions/article/view/934/858

Ferraris, Maurizio. 2012. Manifesto del nuovo realismo. Bari: Laterza.

https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_617573

Frascani, Paolo. 2019. Le eredità delle crisi. Dalla storia al futuro, traiettorie di risposte possibili. Milano: Feltrinelli (Quaderni della Fondazione Feltrinelli).

Freeden, Michael. 2017. "Crisis? How is That a Crisis?!". Contributions to the History of Historical Concepts 12 (2): 12-28.

https://doi.org/10.3167/choc.2017.120202

Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas, Helle Rydstrom, Mo Hamza, and Vanja Berggren. 2022. "Crisis: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives". Global Discourse: A Developmental Journal of Research in Politics and International Relations 12 (3-4): 456-459.

https://doi.org/10.1332/204378921X16391801343500

Giugni, Marco, and Maria T. Grasso. 2018. "Citizens and the Crisis: Experiences, Perceptions, and Responses to the Great Recession in Nine Democracies". In Citizens and the Crisis: Experiences, Perceptions, and Responses to the Great Recession in Nine Democracies, edited by Marco Giugni and Maria T. Grasso, 1-25. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology).

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68960-9_1

Gräf, Kai. 2021. "Critique and Crisis in Context: Rereading Reinhart Koselleck's Interpretation of the Enlightenment". In Crisis and Renewal in the History of European Political Thought, edited by Cesare Cuttica, László Kontler, and Clara Maier, 44-63. Leiden - Boston: Brill.

https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004466876_004

Grossberg, Lawrence. 2010a. "Standing on a Bridge: Rescuing Economies from Economists". Journal of Communication Inquiry 34 (4): 316-336.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859910383014

Grossberg, Lawrence. 2010b. "Modernity and Commensuration". Cultural Studies 24 (3): 295-332.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09502381003750278

Grossberg, Lawrence. 2017. "Making Culture Matter, Making Culture Political". In Crisis, Risks and New Regionalisms in Europe: Emergency Diasporas and Borderlands, edited by Cecile Sandten, Claudia Gualtieri, Roberto Pedretti, and Elke Kronshage, 27-45. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

Grossberg, Lawrence. 2020. "A Conversational Pedagogy for Cultural Studies". Blog post, TransformingSociety, January 3. [11/04/2022].

https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2020/01/03/a-conversational-pedagogy-for-cultural-studies/

Hay, Colin. 1996. "Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the 'Winter of Discontent'". Sociology 30 (2): 257-270.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038596030002004

Hay, Colin. 1999. "Crisis and the Structural Transformation of the State: Interrogating the Process of Change". British Journal of Politics and International Relations 1 (3): 317-344.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-856X.00018

Hay, Colin. 2010. "Chronicles of a Death Foretold: The Winter of Discontent". Parliamentary Affairs 63 (3): 446-470.

https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsp056

Jameson, Fredric. (1981) 1983. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. London: Methuen.

Jordheim, Helge, and Einar Wigen. 2018. "Conceptual Synchronization: From Progress to Crisis". Millennium: Journal of International Studies 46 (3): 421-439.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829818774781

Kjaer, Poul F., and Niklas Olsen, eds. 2016. Critical Theories of Crisis in Europe: From Weimar to the Euro. London - New York: Rowman & Littlefield International.

Konersmanmn, Ralf. 2008. "Vorwort: Figuratives Wissen". In Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, herausgegeben von Ralf Konersmanmn, 7-21. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

Koselleck, Reinhart. 1972. Critica illuminista e crisi della società borghese [1959]. Bologna: il Mulino [trad. it. di Giuseppina Panzieri].

Koselleck, Reinhart. 2009. "Crisi". In Il vocabolario della modernità. Progresso, crisi, utopia e altre storie di concetti [2006], 95-109. Bologna: il Mulino [trad. it. di Carlo Sandrelli].

Koselleck, Reinhart. 2012. Crisi. Per un lessico della modernità [1972-1997], a cura di Gennaro Imbriano e Silvia Rodeschini. Verona: ombre corte [trad. it. di Gennaro Imbriano e Silvia Rodeschini].

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Lupton, Deborah. (1999) 2013. Risk. 2nd edition. Abingdon - New York: Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203070161

Mahony, Nick, and John Clarke. 2013. "Public Crises, Public Futures". Cultural Studies 27 (6): 933-954.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2012.730542

Mika, Kasia, Maria Boletsi, Kesnia Robbe, and Natasha Lemos Dekker. 2021. "Epilogue: The Ends of Crisis". In (Un)timely Crisis: Chronotopes and Critique, edited by Maria Boletsi, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Kasia Mika, and Ksenia Robbe, 91-96. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74946-0_6

Nünning, Ansgar. 2012a. "Making Crises and Catastrophes: How Metaphors and Narratives Shape Their Cultural Life". In The Cultural Life of Catastrophes and Crises, edited by Carsten Meiner and Kristin Veel, 59-88. Berlin - Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110282955.59

Nünning, Ansgar. 2012b. "Narrativist Approaches and Narratological Concepts for the Study of Culture". In Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, edited by Birgitt Neumann and Ansgar Nünning, 145-183. Berlin - Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110227628.145

Robbe, Ksenia, Kristina Gedgaudaite, Hanneke Stuit, Kylie Thomas, and Oxana Timofeeva. 2021. "In and Out of Crisis: Chronotopes of Memory". In (Un)timely Crisis: Chronotopes and Critique, edited by Maria Boletsi, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Kasia Mika, and Ksenia Robbe, 51-76. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74946-0_4

Roitman, Janet. 2013. Anti-Crisis. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.

Roncaglia, Alessandro. 2010. "Le radici culturali della crisi". Moneta e Credito 63 (250): 107-118.

Rusconi, Gian Enrico. 1992. "Crisi socio-politica". In Enciclopedia delle scienze sociali. Roma: Treccani. [11/05/2022].

https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/crisi_%28Enciclopedia-delle-scienze-sociali%29/

Schiller Robert J. (2019) 2020. Economia e narrazioni. Come le storie diventano virali e guidano i grandi eventi economici. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Shank, John B. 2008. "Crisis: A Useful Category of Post-Social Scientific Historical Analysis?". The American Historical Review 113 (4): 1090-1099.

https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.113.4.1090

Starn, Rudolf. 1971. "Historians and the Crisis". Past and Present 52 (August): 3-22.

https://doi.org/10.1093/past/52.1.3

Teulings Coen, and Richard Baldwin, eds. 2014. Secular Stagnation. London: ECPR Press.

Tooze, Adam. 2018. Lo schianto. 2008-2018. Come un decennio di crisi economica ha cambiato il mondo. Milano: Mondadori [trad. it. di Chiara Rizzo e Roberto Serrai].

Vigh, Henrik. 2008. "Crisis and Chronicity: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuous Conflict and Decline". Ethos 73 (1): 5-24.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00141840801927509

Vogl, Johann. 2018. "The History of the Notion of Crisis: Interview with Joseph Vogl". In Critical Theory at a Crossroads: Conversations on Resistance in Times of Crisis, edited by Stijn De Cauwer. New York: Columbia University Press (Kindle edition).