CANCELLED KL: Stefan Iversen: The Culture of Inappropriateness: Value, Affect, and Narrative in Contemporary Rhetorical Discourses

Unfortunately this lecture has been cancelled.

Decorum, a key concept in rhetorical theory and practice, designates perhaps the most important lesson to any speaker: say what is appropriate in the situation. Appropriateness, however, only becomes visible when it is not adhered to. Decorum and with it the rules governing deliberative culture emerges through indecorum. This talk springs from the observation that the meanings of the decorous and the indecorous seem to be undergoing radical changes, changes that go beyond what Boltanski and others have investigated under the heading of “sociology of dispute”. Across discourse realms such as political rhetoric, art, literature, and branding/marketing, debates about as well as practices of the indecorous have taken on new forms and functions. By combining insights from postclassical narratology (Phelan, Altes, Nünning), rhetorical criticism (Jasinski), affect studies (Ahmed) and sociology (Boltanski, Latour), the aim of the talk is to characterize cultural artefacts marked by this obsession with the inappropriate in order to better understand our current struggles with understanding each other.

// Prof. Dr. Stefan Iversen (University Aarhus, DK)