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Living under the dome: The impact of authoritarianism on (our) language and thoughts
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
2:00pm - 4:00pm
Metropolitan Building, Room 5183
A 2-hour participatory workshop open to SCAR master and doctoral students as well as faculty
Carlos E. Sluzki, M.D.
Professor Emeritus, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University,
and Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington University
Living under an authoritarian government –Fascism in one or another of its variations— has an unavoidable impact on our languaging: we may be somewhat worried that our telephone conversations may be listened to by security services, that our emails and tweets may be intercepted by the goons, and imperceptibly we may being to censor what we say, or how we say it. We begin to mold our thinking accordingly. In other words, the slide into submission to the oppressive values is a function of both adopting certain discourses, while self-censoring others.
Dr. Sluzki has worked on the subject in several countries coming out of periods of repressive/military government, and in each of these cases, the pervasive presence of these processes on the general citizenry –including people like you and me, university students and professionals --is overwhelming.
In this short workshop he will share some of those experiences, and explore with you whether these processes are already begin to affect our way of talking. The purpose of this workshop is to support our collective engagement of reflection on the policed discourses, providing an opportunity to explore, reflect, and discuss the nature of the discourses that may otherwise become “habitus.”
RSVP**
** Workshop requires 4 or more participants to be registered. If not enough participants are registered by Monday, April 10, 2017 the workshop will be cancelled/rescheduled. Registered participants will be notified via email.