[Commlist] CFP: Discourse of reaction: national and transnational repertoires”

*“Discourse of reaction: national and transnational repertoires”*

*Université libre de Bruxelles, September 8-9, 2025*

The rise of conservative, radical and far-right discourse in the Western 
world is increasingly drawing the attention of researchers in the 
humanities and social sciences. According to Albert Hirschman’s 
pioneering work (1991), “reactionary rhetoric” has historically unfolded 
in three major waves: reaction against human rights, reaction against 
universal suffrage, and, finally, reaction against the welfare state. 
Today, however, reactionary rhetoric seems to be targeting social rights 
movements—feminist, environmentalist, anti-racist movements, or, more 
broadly, movements perceived, rightly or wrongly, as progressive. These 
observations suggest that the study of reactionary discourse needs to be 
revised and updated.

Most contemporary studies of reactionary movements have focused on 
right-wing or ethno-nationalist organisations, for example “the populist 
right” (Traverso 2019), “the reactionary right”, “national populist 
movements” (Camus & Lebourg 2017), “far-right 2.0” (Forti 2021), 
“radical right-wing populist”, “far-right” parties (Mudde 2019; Mudde & 
Kaltwasser 2013), “right-wing populisms” (Mouffe 2018), and “reactionary 
populism” (Fraser 2017). This research focuses primarily on the European 
and the American contexts, but more recently also Latin America 
(Goldstein 2022, Stefanoni 2022, Bolcatto & Soroujon 2020, Zanotti & 
Roberts 2021, Morresi, Saferstein & Vicente 2022, Cassimiro & Lynch 
2022, Semán 2023, Sanahuja & Stefanoni 2023, Demuru 2024).

However, we observe that for some time now, reactionary discursive 
formations have spread beyond the far-right, nationalistic rhetoric, and 
have done so in the form of “discursive nodes” (Krieg-Planque 2010) 
i.e., tropes available within social discourse. Speakers “pick and 
choose” individual elements without necessarily adhering to a full 
reactionary repertoire, thereby generating hybrid discourses. 
Furthermore, the generalisation of these tropes, detached as they are 
from their natural environment, are evidence of their acceptability.

The second observation concerns the circulation of this discursive 
formation across multiple linguistic regions, focusing on transfers 
between Europe, North America, and Latin America—regions that share 
common political traditions, yet different democratic cultures, and 
development markers. This multilingual circulation does not occur as a 
stable discursive repertoire but rather as /ideologemes/: underlying 
units of meaning within statements that belong to the same thematic 
field (Angenot 1977). For instance, the lexemes /wokisme/woke/ in French 
and /progresismo/zurdo/ in Spanish are not linguistic equivalents but 
share the same semantic components in discourse. They refer to the same 
political imaginary and fulfil the same social function—appropriating 
concepts from other ideological sectors, delegitimising political 
opponents, or constructing polarisation in social debates. As these 
concepts travel between cultural regions, they reflect a normalised 
anti-progressive imaginary embedded in both classic and innovative forms 
of reactionary discourse. While there is extensive research on the 
transnational circulation of political concepts, this conference aims to 
document the specific moment in social discourse (Angenot 1995) when 
reactionary discursive formations spread and even become hegemonic 
across multiple cultural areas. This process highlights the existence of 
highly flexible political imaginaries capable of adapting to diverse 
contexts.

This call for communications is situated within two bodies of 
literature: the study of reactionary rhetoric, initiated by Albert 
Hirschman (1991; Sternhell 2006; Durand & Syndaco 2015; Shorten 2022; 
Traverso 2017; Forti 2021; Stefanoni 2022), and the study of the 
circulation of ideas and concepts (Koselleck 1982, Passard 2024, Skinner 
1969).

The conference’s primary goal is to examine the contemporary circulation 
of reactionary discursive formations (Foucault 1969:141) between Europe 
and Latin America. The specific objectives are as follows:

  * Establish a repertoire of arguments, lexicons, and phraseologies
    within this discursive formation, whether in national or
    transnational contexts, focusing on the circulation of specific
    lexemes (/wokisme, cancel culture, batalla cultural, casta/).
  * Identify paradigms such as the lexical field of totalitarianism
    (/feminazi, ayatollahs de l’écologie, dictature nazitaire, dictadura
    de la corrección política, terrorismo feminista, ecoterrorismo,
    feminismo totalitario/), hypocrisy and duplicity (/gauche caviar,
    communists, gauchiste, progres/), or the conspiratorial imaginary
    attacking cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and globalization
    (/grand remplacement, agenda 2030/).
  * Explore interdiscursive relations with other social discourses:
    leftist discourses, traditional right-wing discourses, human rights
    rhetoric, scientific or anti-scientific discourses.
  * Investigate the social spaces where transfers and circulations occur
    between different regions (party congresses, media, social networks,
    publishing houses) and the trajectories of the actors involved.
  * Understand the conditions which enable the circulation of these
    discourses and reactionary imaginaries (the crisis of representative
    democracy, the role of influencers in radio and social media, media
    ownership).
  * Map the enunciators who carry this discursive formation in terms of
    their ideological diversity and hybridity (far-right, conservative
    or liberal right, libertarians, republican universalists).

The conference seeks to examine reactionary discursive formations in 
both political and everyday discourse, at national and transnational 
levels, drawing from multiple disciplines: discourse analysis, 
information and communication sciences, political science, sociology, 
and the history of ideas. We welcome submission from both national and 
comparative perspectives, using monolingual or multilingual corpora. 
Papers can be written in French, English or Spanish.

*Submission of proposals*

We welcome abstracts of up to 500 words, with bibliographical references 
at the end. Abstracts can be sent to (discoursreac /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(discoursreac /at/ gmail.com)>

*Deadline: April 28, 2025*

*Comité d’organisation :*

Laura Calabrese (ULB), Frédéric Louault (ULB), Sol Montero (UNSAM, 
Argentine),Laurye Joncret (ULB), Micaela Baldoni (Conicet, ULB)

**

*Comité scientifique :*

Micaela Baldoni (Conicet, Université libre de Bruxelles)

Arthur Boriello (Université de Namur)

Laura Calabrese(Université libre de Bruxelles)

Pietro Castelli (Université libre de Bruxelles)

Benjamin De Cleen(Vrije Universitein Brussel)

Barbara de Cock (Université catholique de Louvain)

Morgan Donot (Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Santiago Garaño (Conicet, Universidad nacional de Lanús)

Philippe Hambye (Université catholique de Louvain)

Frédéric Louault (Université libre de Bruxelles)

Sol Montero (Conicet, Universidad de San Martín)

Camila Moreira Cesar (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Yeny Serrano (Université de Strasbourg)

Jan Zienkowski(Université libre de Bruxelles)

**

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