| Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force Language is our key to imagining the world, others, and ourselves. Yet sometimes our ways of talking dehumanize others and trivialize human experience. In war other people are imagined as enemies to be killed. The language of race objectifies those it touches, and propaganda disables democracy. Advertising reduces us to consumers, and clichés destroy the life of the imagination. James Boyd White is Hart Wright Professor of Law, Professor of English, and Adjunct Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. His books include The Legal Imagination and The Edge of Meaning . |