Behind the Headlines | History, Hope and the Political Speech

Monday, 1 March 2021, 7 – 8:30pm What makes a political speech?
From Aristotle to Hannah Arendt, philosophers have seen the arts of
rhetoric and oratory as essential to the proper functioning of the
public sphere. Some speeches, like Martin Luther King’s 1963 dream
vision or Greta Thunberg’s 2019 ‘How dare you?’ address have
defined a generation. Others have embedded lasting images,
metaphors and poetic borrowings – ‘the iron curtain’, ‘rivers of
blood’, ‘when hope and history rhyme’ – in the public imagination.
In Ireland, powerful speeches have patterned our history, from
Robert Emmet’s 1803 declamation from the dock to Mary Robinson’s
1990 presidential acceptance speech, that heralded the women of
Ireland for rocking the system instead of rocking the cradle. How
is language shaped to such effect, and how does political oratory
play with truth, emotion, and imagination? Can the tradition of the
political speech endure in an age of social media sound-bites? In
this Behind the Headlines, which takes place in the dark shadow of
the January 6th riots in Washington, we will also ask about the
political speech in the context of dictatorship, demagoguery and
the weaponising of words, and ask at what point the art of public
persuasion tips over into incitement. Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador of
Ireland to the United States Senator Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of
Criminal Law, Trinity College Dublin Alan Finlayson, Professor of
Political & Social Theory, The University of East Anglia Darryl
Jones, Professor of Literature, Trinity College Dublin. Martine
Cuypers, Professor in Greek, Trinity College Dublin The Trinity
Long Room Hub Behind the Headlines series is supported by the John
Pollard Foundation. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/