Bad Language (Paperback)

So Mayer

ISBN 10: 1913512797 / ISBN 13: 9781913512798

Published by Peninsula Press Ltd, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. In Bad Language, So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has been used and abused in their own life. What is the relationship between language and sexual violence? And how can we make ourselves up in language when words themselves are encoded by a dominant culture that insists we see ourselves as powerless listeners rather than active speakers? Examining the semantic traps of their multi-lingual childhood and taking in texts from the Torah to Grimms Fairytales, from protest bust cards to the works of Ursula K. Le Guin Mayer asks who gets to speak, and who is forced into silence. Bad Language calls out the harm that words can do, while searching for crafty ways through which we can collectively reclaim language for protest and pleasure. In Bad Language, So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has been used and abused in their own life. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781913512798

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Bad Language (Paperback)
• Publisher: Peninsula Press Ltd
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1913512797
• ISBN 13: 9781913512798
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In Bad Language, So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has been used - and abused - in their own life. What is the relationship between language and sexual violence? And how can we 'make ourselves up' in language, when words themselves are encoded by a dominant culture that insists we see ourselves as powerless listeners rather than active speakers? Examining the semantic traps of their own multi-lingual childhood - and taking in texts from the Torah to Grimms' Fairytales, from protest march bust cards to the works of Ursula K. Le Guin - Mayer asks who gets to speak, and who is forced into silence. Bad Language calls out the harm that words can do, while searching for crafty ways that we can collectively reclaim language for protest and pleasure.