Andreas Musolff Book order

The book explores the complex interpretations of the metaphor "the Nation as a Body" through a large-scale experiment involving over 1,800 participants from diverse cultural backgrounds. It reveals that metaphor meanings are culturally mediated and vary between senders and recipients. By providing a historical and cultural context, the author challenges traditional views of the nation as a male-gendered, hierarchical concept. This work offers methodological insights for scholars studying figurative language and uncovers nuanced differences in political metaphors, particularly in English as a global lingua franca.

Chapter 4 The life and times of a metaphor scenario: Britain at the heart of Europe -- 4.1 Memories of a metaphor -- 4.2 The emergence of a metaphor scenario -- 4.3 Scenario development -- 4.4 Scenarios and blends -- 4.5 Summary -- Chapter 5 The belly and the body politic -- 5.1 Memories of a fable -- 5.2 The body politic tradition -- 5.3 Body politic, corps politique, politischer K ö rper : Traces of national discourse traditions in metaphor usage -- 5.4 Historical explanations for the development of metaphor scenarios -- 5.5 Summary

The book critically examines the use of body, illness, and parasite metaphors in Nazi anti-Semitic ideology, particularly through Hitler's writings and public speeches from the 1920s to 1945. It highlights how these metaphors justified and defended genocidal policies against Jews, supported by evidence from surveillance reports and diaries reflecting popular opinion. Additionally, it traces the historical roots of these metaphors back to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, revealing their evolution and significance in shaping political discourse in Germany, with implications for understanding Holocaust ideology.

Using a corpus of British and German media texts from the period 1989-2000, this book provides a contrastive overview over the main metaphor fields of Euro-debates in the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic.