On March 14th, the Institute of European Studies in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel lecture series and German Institute in Washington DC and Berkeley, were pleased to host Professor Willibald Steinmetz from Bielefeld University to discuss his upcoming book Outrageous Comparisons in Modern History and Contemporary Politics. For an audience of 25, Professor Steinmetz gave a report on the progression of his book discussing the ‘who, why, what, how’ questions regarding outrageous comparisons through analysis of emotions, language, technology, and history.
Steinmetz’s upcoming book aims to analyze historical comparisons that provoke public outrage and attempts to understand what drives certain comparisons to be so inflammatory in the contemporary political landscape. In the book, Steinmetz uses images, propagandas, and other forms of visuals to include in his analysis, which is in part intended to interrogate the role of media in adding to the outrage.
Steinmetz outlined what are outrageous comparisons, and defined outrageous comparisons as comparisons that evoke public outrage. He further explained that not all polemical comparisons are outrageous comparisons; therefore, outrageous comparisons must have a reaction in public. With outrageousness, he explained, there may be a time lag between making comparison and reaction, as the comparison could be slowly growing and suddenly erupting sensitivity. Continuing answering the main questions in the book, Steinmetz questioned how outrageous comparisons are framed in language, exploring the linguistic component of provoking outrage. Outrageous comparisons have had a history in shaping political discourse and Steinmetz is determined to interrogate the core of such comparisons in his upcoming book.