Political English

Thomas Docherty is Professor of English at the University of Warwick, UK. He has published on most areas of English and comparative literature from the Renaissance to the present day. He specializes in the philosophy of literary criticism, in critical theory, and in cultural history in relation primarily to European philosophy and literatures. His previous publications include After Theory (1996), The English Question (2008) and Literature and Capital (Bloomsbury, 2018).

This brilliant text demands immediate attention. Gathering research from a wide spectrum of disciplines in order to gain understanding of the normalizing of “atrocious” language (p. 1), Docherty (English, Univ. of Warwick, UK) argues that such language has the power to shape democratic discourse, culture, and politics and widen divisions between those who find truth in facts and reality and those who measure truth by agreement as prescribed by ideology and community. Summing Up: Essential.

• IntroductionChapter 1 On Pluck: English and MoneyChapter 2 English Nativism and Linguistic XenophobiaChapter 3 Fundamentalist English; or The Stiff Upper LipChapter 4 On Truth and Lying in a Political SenseChapter 5 Words, Deeds, and DemocracyChapter 6 Profanity and Free SpeechChapter 7 Remnants of DissentIndex