52 min listen
Magda Stroińska, "My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes" (Durvile, 2023)
Magda Stroińska, "My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes" (Durvile, 2023)
ratings:
Length:
65 minutes
Released:
Dec 21, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
My Life in Propaganda: A Memoir about Language and Totalitarian Regimes (Durvile, 2023) is Magda Stroińska’s personal account of growing up with communist propaganda in Eastern Europe. She looks at the influence of her family history that contradicted what she was taught at school; the cognitive and emotional effects of compulsory school readings; socialist realist art and film; and Radio Free Europe and Voice of America and their role in shaping her generation’s collective view of the world. Through her chosen field of linguistics, she analyzes ways in which propagandistic language, such as ‘doubletalk,’ Orwellian ‘Newspeak,’ ‘weasel words,’ and, more colloquially, ‘bullshit,’ is used to distort reality. The book demonstrates that democracy can never be taken for granted.
AJ Woodhams hosts the "War Books" podcast. You can subscribe on Apple here and on Spotify here. War Books is on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
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AJ Woodhams hosts the "War Books" podcast. You can subscribe on Apple here and on Spotify here. War Books is on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language
Released:
Dec 21, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Robert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011): Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the anguish of declinists the world over, by New Books in Language