Trump's tweets

Angela Smith has co-written an article with Michael Higgins (Strathclyde University) which looks at discourses of masculinity in the social media performance of US President Donald Trump. The authors discuss the implications of these for the normalisation of regressive forms of masculinity in public discourse, where normalisation is the process of co-opting otherwise deviant behaviours by integrating them into institutional practice. The article begins by exploring ways in which Trump’s social media performance exhibits the characteristics of “hypermasculinity”. The analysis then turns to the everyday expression of traditionally macho masculinity by Trump by conducting a search for tokens of the masculine gendered nouns “man” and “guy”, and using critical discourse analysis to reveal the use of these in exercising gendered forms of judgement. Of particular importance is the informal “guy”, through which Trump defines challengers within power-based masculine oppositions. Overall, the authors find that while the concept of hypermasculinity is useful in describing provocative displays of “bad behaviour” oriented-towards a populist style of leadership, Trump routinely produces more banal types of masculine performance that objectify allies and opponents within a gendered hierarchy, and may be said to normalise regressive forms of masculinity within the prevailing political culture.

Smith, A. and Higgins, M. 2020. Tough guys and little rocket men: @Realdonaldtrump’s Twitter feed and the normalisation of banal masculinity. Social Semiotics.

A triangular affair

Dr Miguel Gomes has published a chapter in which he discusses his own translation into modern Spanish of the seven early medieval poems often referred to as the Old English elegies. Miguel considers the unavoidable anachronism of addressing a later audience, the projection of an imagined reader and the (im)possibility of cross-cultural understanding, as well as the 'infiltrations' and silences of the source and the translated text. He also reflects on the nature of literary translation in the context of early medieval texts and how to face 'the third point of the triangle' in the translation process, what John Berger (2016) defined as that which lies 'behind the words of the original text before it was written …to reach, to touch the vision or experience which prompted them.' The significance of these words will be explored alongside Edwin Morgan’s understanding of what he named a 'full translation', one that 'aims to interest and at times to excite the reader of poetry without misleading anyone who has no access to the original.'

'A Triangular Affair': Oddities, Readability and Excitement in the Translation of the Old English Elegies into Spanish.' In Literature, Science and Religion: Textual Transmission and Translation in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by Manel Bellmunt Serrano and Joan Mahiques Climent (Edition Reichenberger, 2020).

Clean eating

Angela Smith has published an article about 'clean eating'. The clean eating dietary fad has grown in popularity in the last decade. Angela's research explores how it has come to be associated with certain ingredients and a general discourse of well-being. Whilst being largely discredited as pseudo-science, many of these ingredients have found their way into recipes in the cookery books of those who declare a clear opposition to clean eating. In particular, Angela explores the cookery books of Nigella Lawson, as she states a preference for new ingredients that are typically associated with clean eating.

Smith, A. (2020) 'Clean eating’s surprising normalisation: The case of Nigella Lawson'. Discourse, Context & Media 35.