Why this website?

My first post in DMT in Action is a personal note. This spring I was preparing for my trip to Messina as a visiting researcher where I will also give a keynote talk at the conference ‘’Cognitive tools in action’’ (Home – Cognitive Futures in the Arts and the Humanities). At that moment, I was also writing my short piece for the Forum section in Metaphor and the Social World, about the card game metaphor in the exchange between presidents Trump and Zelensky at the White House. At the same time, I was considering my future priorities for let us say the last stage of my career: on January 1 2023 I took early retirement in order to improve my health and well-being, but I had not got to the stage yet where I was making new plans. It turned out that this was the moment.

I realized that I wanted to create a new way of interacting with colleagues while having left campus. Regular publication can take ages and can be too piecemeal. I wanted something more continuous and maybe also direct and informal.

I also felt that the public nature of sharing research on the internet had room for yet another format. At first I wanted to go for a more general and less academic level of interaction, in order to increase impact. But then I realized that that was precisely going a step too far. That’s why the website has become entirely academic. It is meant as a new space for academics to play. It will not raise your H-score, but it may increase your understanding of the issues and your feeling of being connected and involved.

At the same time, building bridges to society is clearly also what is needed. RaAM is called RaAM for a reason. Governments are funding science for science but also science for society. And researchers themselves attempt to increase the appeal of their work to the general public by coming up with conference titles like “Cognitive tools in action”, and rightly so. I ended my piece on the card game metaphor in Metaphor and the Social World by briefly raising the question of what metaphor researchers can do. This website is one option.

One thing I have been defending over the past two decades is that metaphor researchers should be more careful in their claims about the power of metaphor. The motto of this website is ‘Not every metaphor in action is a metaphor in action.’ It is the mission of DMT to become maximally precise about the real impact of metaphor in action.

DMT’s engagement with what I called the paradox of metaphor in 2008 has caused misunderstanding, debate, but also high-quality new research. A DMT website may be another, stimulating way in which DMT research can be criticized and improved.

It is my personal agenda to promote this development in ways that continue the traditions of the Metaphor Lab Amsterdam and its summer and winter schools and Metaphor Festivals. I hope that there will be enough colleagues who can join me on this DMT trip without turning it into a psychedelic experience.