Daniel Carey is Director of the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway. In Fall 2018, he visited the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, where he opened the Speakers and Public Talks Series with a memorable lecture on "Swift, Gulliver, and the Art of Travel."
In a piece published on 26 May in the Irish Humanities Alliance's blog, Professor Carey writes about the work of metaphor in the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 18th, as Covid-19 spread across the United States, Donald Trump declared himself a “wartime president”. Like many of his fellow leaders, he opted for metaphor amidst the crisis, enhancing his status while underscoring the severity of the situation. The pandemic has proved a fruitful ground for figurative language, with metaphors, similes, and other comparisons defining our relationship to a complex and tragic reality.
Link to the Irish Humanities Alliance blog on "The Work of Metaphor in the Coronavirus Pandemic."