11/11/2025 (Thesday) 13:00-14:00 E21-G002
Politicians at Night
Abstract:
Comedy and politics are intertwined in the United States, and perhaps the importance of Donald Trump in American politics has further cemented this trend. For this talk, I examine how entertainment and politics come together in a particular genre of communication in the United States: interviews with politicians on late-night talk shows (by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert). I also look at the interactional logic underlying these interviews employing a wide variety of discourse analytic methods. This investigates question design, categorization practices, ordinariness, pronoun use, the overall structural organization and the nature of politics crafted through this type of political interview.
Bio:
Prof. Menno Reijven is currently an Assistant Professor of Argumentation and Communication at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in pragmatics, rhetoric, and political discourse. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, focusing on the argumentative structure of U.S. presidential debates. His research explores mediated political interactions and has been widely published in journals and edited volumes on language and social interaction.
