My Seminar Project

I'm pretty excited about the project I'm doing in my metaphor theory seminar. I'm examining metaphors in Minuteman rhetoric (the anti-immigration people, not the UMass mascots). It's been pretty fun so far, but I've got a long way to go.

Progress:

I've collected stuff from five different categories:

-Minuteman blogs and forums
-Minuteman official communications (operations manual, Web site, etc.)
-News stories (including press releases and some stuff from right-wing pubs as well as the MSM)
-Speeches, statements, and so forth from lawmakers associated with the Minutemen
-Text of immigration legislation

My hypothesis is that the Minutemen, a very vocal minority, have had an enormous effect on the kinds of rhetoric used to talk about -- and legislate about -- immigration. That's why I'm looking at the legislation; I think it will have many of the same conceptual metaphors that the Minutemen routinely use to frame the debate.

I know there are some holes in my approach, but I'm patching them, I think... We'll have to see.