Robert Gould

Biography

Following university studies in England and the United States, Robert Gould began teaching and research in the German Department of Carleton University in Ottawa. After becoming interested in the theory and practice of rhetoric, he taught courses on the development of political language in Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This led eventually to an examination of contemporary discourses of immigration and identity in a range of European countries – Austria, Germany, Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland – as represented by political position papers and on-the-record public statements by politicians in those countries. In addition to being Adjunct Research Professor in the School of Linguistics and Language Studies, he holds a similar position in Carleton’s Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Recent Activities

Consultant for the project “Shrinking Citizenship: A Challenge to Civil Society and Participation”. This project was directed by PROVIDUS, a Latvian NGO, and monitors the language used by politicians, administrators and journalists when speaking of the minorities living in Latvia (December 2006 to December 2008).

Member of the Expert Advisory Group of the research project (now concluded) “Sprache und Identitätspolitik” centred at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland.

Selected Recent Papers/Publications

“The EU’s approach to regulating artificial intelligence”, EU Policy Brief #9, by Robert Gould (Carleton University), January 2022.

Commentary: Deepening the ‘Brussels Effect’ to avoid Dystopia: Ethics and the Globalisation of EU Identity and Influence (June 2021)

Commentary: Commentary: EU and AI: EU Identity and “Systemic Rivalry” (February 2021)

Commentary: EU Digital Autonomy, Sovereignty and Identity in the Time of COVID-19 (July 2020)

Commentary: Democratic Dilemmas: Dealing with Alternative für Deutschland and Vox España (February 2020)

“Vox España and Alternative für Deutschland: Propagating the Crisis of National Identity”.  Genealogy, Special Issue “New Perspectives on Nationalism in Spain”, 2019, 3(4). Also available in eds. Carsten Jacob Humlebæk and Antonia María Ruiz Jiménez, New Perspectives on Nationalism in Spain, MDPI (Basel etc.) 2020.

Commentary: “Vox España, an Alternative Identity for Spain: Nationalism, Opposition to the European Union and Proposals for a ‘Spexit’” (February 2019)

“Culture and Constitution: An Alternative Identity for Germany”, a working paper published by the research group Demospain at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville, Spain.

Canada/Europe Transatlantic Dialogue, Centre for European Studies Commentary (January 2018): “An Alternative Identity for Germany in the 21^st Century” (January 2018).

“’Alien Religiosity’ in three Liberal European States” in (Il)liberal Europe: Islamophobia, Modernity and Radicalization, eds. Natalie J. Doyle and Irfan Ahmad, Routledge: 2018.

“The Borders of Heimat” in Immigration Crises, Borders, and the European Union, ed. Jaroslaw Janczak, Logos Verlag, Berlin: (2017) pp. 39-48.

Canada Europe Transatlantic Dialogue / Centre for European Studies Policy Brief (June 2016): “Religion and National Identity: Islamophobia as a valid electoral option?”.

“The Problematic Nexus of Language and Identity: Some concluding remarks”, Language and Identity Politics, ed. Christina Späti, Berghahn Books: Oxford and New York, 2016.

“Moors and Christians: Fear of Islam in Spanish Political Debates” in eds. Douglas Pratt and Rachel Woodlock, Fear of Muslims: International Perspectives on Islamophobia, Springer (2016).

“Islam returns to Spain: Religious Diversity, Political Discourse and Women’s Rights” in a special issue on Religious Citizenship of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 26:2 (2015).

Canada Europe Transatlantic Dialogue / Centre for European Studies  Policy Brief (December 2014): “Veiled Women: Open Threats?”.

“Roma Rights and Roma Expulsions in France: Official Discourse and EU Responses”, in Critical Social Policy (2014).

“Islam returns to Spain: the Spanish Supreme Court accepts the Burka” at the workshop “The Future of Democracy: Europe and Islam in the 21^st Century”, European Studies Centre of Monash University in Prato, 20^th and 21^st June 2013.

“‘Alien Religiosity’ in Three Liberal European States”, Politics, Religion & Ideology 14:2 (2013) pp. 173-192.

‘European Principles: Language, Identity, Minorities’ in the round-table discussion “Europe: still a Continent of Multicullturalism?”, January 21^st, 2013.

“Roma Expulsions: Principles, Politics, Limits”, Eighth Biennial Conference 2012, European Community Studies Association-Canada, Ottawa, 26th – 28th April, 2012.

“Rejection by Implication: Christian Parties, German Identity, and the Power of Discourse”, Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, special theme issue:  Embracing the Other: Conceptualizations, Representations, and Social Practices of [In]Tolerance in German Culture and Literature,  48.3 (2012), pp. 397-412.

“’How much alien Religiosity can our Society take?’  Reconciling Conflicting Claims of Private and Public in Germany, Belgium, and France” at the workshop “Globalization, Illiberalism and Islam: Europe and Australia”, European Studies Centre of Monash University in Prato, 16^th and 17^th June 2011.

“Headscarves and National Identity in Germany” at the conference “The Maturing of the Multicultural Experiment: European Challenges Coming to Canada?”  European Union Centre of Excellence, York University, 7 March 2011.

“Slová a obrazy môžu spôsobit’ bolest’. Ako sa stavat’ voči obrazom a jazyku zameraným proti menšinàm” / “Words and Pictures Can Hurt: Dealing with Anti-Minority Images and Language”, Viktória Mlynáčiková and Zuzana Gáborová (eds.) Tí Praví … Zbornik prispevkov z konferencie o pravicovom extrémizme – Open Society Camp / The Right Ones … Open Society Camp – REX conference proceedings, Nadácia Otvornej Spoločnosti – Open Society Foundation Bratislava 2011, pp. 101-113 and 243-256.

“Managing Ambivalence and Identity: Immigration Discourses and (trans)national Identities in the European Union,” Joan DeBardeleben and Achim Hurrelmann (eds.) Transnational Europe: Promise, Paradox, Limits. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke: 2011, pp. 170-188.

Eds. Robert Gould and Maria Golubeva, Shrinking Citizenship: Discursive Practices that Limit Democratic Participation in Latvian Politics. Rodopi: Amsterdam and New York, 2010.

“Some Recent Discourses of Exclusion in the EU”, Shrinking Citizenship…, pp. 15-50.

“The Rhetoric of the Right on Migrants and Minorities: Banality and Fear”, Inclusion Unaffordable: The Uncertain Fate of Integration Policies in Europe.  Ed. Maria Golubeva, PROVIDUS: Riga, 2010, 39-48.

«La ‘mort’ du multiculturalisme allemand : ce que cachent les propos chocs d’Angela Merkel» / “The ‘Death’ of Multiculturalism : What  Angela Merkel’s shock talk is hiding”, L’Actualité fédérale, décembre 2010, vol. 1 no. 2.

“European Discourses in Inclusion and Exclusion” in the panel “Marginalisation and Legitimation of Societal Diversity in Political Discourses”, Baltic Studies Conference, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania June 12-14 2009.

“Speaking Immigration in a Globalising World. Establishing (Trans)National Identities in the EU: Ministers talking about Immigration” at the international conference “Transnational Europe: Promise, Paradox, Limits”, Carleton University, October 17 and 18^th 2008.

Identity Discourses in the German Headscarf Debate, Working Papers Series 15, Canadian Centre for German and European Studies / Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes, 2008.

“New Populations in Europe: The German Headscarf Debate as Resistance and Accommodation”, Centre for European Studies, Carleton University, 24 September, 2007.

“Identity, Diversity, Responsibility”, delivered at the international conference “Ethics in Democracy: How can Ethics Shape Political Culture?” Riga, 5 and 6 November, 2007.  This paper is available under the title  “Politicians’ Statements on Mixed Identities in Europe: Identity, Diversity, Responsibility.”

“Varieties of Discourse in the German Headscarf Debate”, Canadian Centre for European and German Studies, York University, 28 March 2007.

“The European Paradox: Swiss Discourses of Identity between Dependence and Xenophobia”, in Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe, ed. Clare Mar-Molinero and Patrick Stevenson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006;  2^nd edition 2008.

“Immigrants and the Nation: Political Discourses in Germany and Spain, 2002-2004″ with Antonia Maria Ruiz Jimenéz, Departamento de Ciencia Política y de la Administración, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, UNED, Madrid, Biennial Conference of the European Community Studies Association – Canada, Victoria, B.C. 19 May, 2006.

” Das Gericht, die Entscheidung, die Politiker: Sprachanalytische Überlegungen zu Identitäts­bekundungen im Kopftuchstreit”, Kolloquium, University of Bielefeld, 9 May, 2005.

The CDU’s Identity and Immigration Discourses and the Future of the European Union” Paper given at the research workshop “The Approach of Mainstream and Extremist Political Parties towards Immigration”, sponsored by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (of the United Kingdom) and held at the University of Bath, 20-21 September, 2004.

“Integration, Solidarität, and the Discourses of National Identity in the 1998 Bundestag Election Manifestos,” German Life and Letters, N.S. 55:4 (2000), 539-561.

Recent Graduate Supervision

Ph.D. Thesis, University of Potsdam (Germany)

“Zweitgutacher” (external advisor and examiner) for the Ph.D. thesis at the University of Potsdam: “Tradition, Solidarity, and Empowerment: The Native Discourse in Canada: an Analysis of Native News Representations” by Steffi Retzlaff (2005).