1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910462561503321

Autore

Mitchell Peta

Titolo

Contagious metaphor / Peta Mitchell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London ; New York, : Continuum, 2012

ISBN

1-4725-4233-9

1-283-85337-X

1-4411-9743-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (209 p.)

Disciplina

808.032

Soggetti

Metaphor - Social aspects

Metaphor in literature

Contagion (Social psychology)

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index

Nota di contenuto

Contagious metaphor -- Pestilence and poison winds: literary contagions and the endurance of miasma theory -- The French fin de siecle and the birth of social contagion theory -- The contagion of example -- Infectious ideas: Dawkins, meme theory, and the politics of metaphor -- Networks of contagion

Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Due Preparations -- 1. Contagious metaphor -- 2. Pestilence and poison winds: Literary contagions and the endurance of miasma theory -- 3. The French fin de siècle and the birth of social contagion theory -- 4. The contagion of example -- 5. Infectious ideas: Richard Dawkins, meme theory, and the politics of metaphor -- 6. Networks of contagion -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The metaphor of contagion pervades critical discourse across the humanities, the medical sciences, and the social sciences. It appears in such terms as 'social contagion' in psychology, 'financial contagion' in economics, 'viral marketing' in business, and even 'cultural contagion' in anthropology. In the twenty-first century, contagion, or 'thought contagion' has become a byword for creativity and a fundamental process by which knowledge and ideas are communicated and taken up, and resonates with André Siegfried's observation that 'there is a striking parallel between the spreading of germs and the spreading of



ideas'. In Contagious Metaphor, Peta Mitchell offers an innovative, interdisciplinary study of the metaphor of contagion and its relationship to the workings of language. Examining both metaphors of contagion and metaphor as contagion, Contagious Metaphor suggests a framework through which the emergence and often epidemic-like reproduction of metaphor can be better understood