Dr Bernhard Forchtner

My PhD research looked at different ways in which claims to know the lessons from the past can be utilised differently, constituting a range of subject positions. I was also involved in a major research project on multilingualism and identity in the European Union (funded by the European Commission under its Sixth Framework Programme, contract number: 028702).

I am now primarily working on the far right in Europe and environmental communication. Here, I am interested in particular in how issues such as global warming and/or biodiversity (to name only two) are playing their part in far right communication. I am furthermore increasingly interested in how mainstream discourses about the environmental position subjects and enable inclusion and exclusion. 

My research has been funded by the European Commission (2013-15, Marie Curie Action, FP7/2007-2013, grant agreement no. 327595), the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2009-11) and the Economic and Social Research Council (2007-2010). I have also received smaller grants by the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester (2017) and by the College here in Leicester (Research and Development Grant, 2016).

I welcome applications in the following areas:

• Political communication (in particular but not restricted to communication by nationalist/far-right actors)

• Environmental communication

• Discursive construction of the past/collective memories and research drawing on multimodal (critical) discourse analysis

Past and present PhD students include

• Kerstin Tschernigg, 'Online activism versus offline pragmatism: Redefining the digital narrative of environmental communication', 2^nd supervisor

• Samuel Nicholes, ‘The New Environmental Determinism? Transitions to far right environmentalism’, 1^st supervisor

• Matthew Brennan, ‘The Construction and Negotiation of Masculine Identities on talkSPORT’, 1^st supervisor

• Taylor Brooks, ‘Immigration in the Press: The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal during the Obama and the Trump Presidencies’, 1^st supervisor

• Paul Covaliu, ‘Surveillance and censorship. The impact and influence of secret services on media freedom and pluralism. A case study of Romania’, 2^nd supervisor

• Barry Hawthorne, ‘Insiders out, Outsiders in: a comparative study of the discourse of inclusion and exclusion of people with disabilities and displaced individuals in German society’, 2^nd supervisor

• Joe Bedford, ‘Green, Pleasant and Ours: Challenging 'far-right ecologism' through contemporary environmental fiction’ (awarded 2025), 2^nd supervisor

• Pamela Wilson, ‘The construction and performance of Turkish secular identity in an age of opposition’ (awarded 2025), 1^st supervisor

• Sebastian Aravena Ortiz, ‘Sustainable identity through media screens’ (awarded 2025), 2^nd supervisor

• Chris Tsui, ‘The “Golden Rule”: Misogyny in the Hong Kong Golden Forum During the 2019 Hong Kong Protests’ (awarded 2024), 1^st supervisor

• Ella Muncie, ‘Campaigning for the Future and the Future of Campaigning: The Case of Greenpeace International’s Alternative Futures Campaign’ (awarded 2024), 2^nd supervisor

• Abdullatif Alhaj Omar, ‘A Framing Analysis of the United States Government Counter-Terrorism Messaging Strategies During the Rise and Fall of ISIS’ (awarded 2024), 2^nd supervisor

• Mai Alshareef, ‘Implementation of Vision 2030 in the Saudi Education System: Views from Educators, Policymakers, and the Public Debate on Twitter’ (awarded 2023), 2^nd supervisor

• Chimwemwe Chavinda, ‘The Co-construction of knowledge of climate change adaption in Malawi’s environmental communication’ (awarded 2022), 2^nd supervisor

• Sandra Kaulfuss, ‘Same Old News? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Migration News in British and German Broadsheet Journalism’ (awarded 2020), 2^nd supervisor

• Asmali Sulaiman, ‘Inventing Apps: The Case of The Incubatees at iCentre Brunei’ (awarded 2020), 1^st supervisor

• Aynur Unal, ‘Analysing the Discourse about Kurdishness: Indigeneity and the Kurdish Political Movement in Turkey’ (awarded 2019), 1^st supervisor

I have taught a variety of modules at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

As module leader

    MS1001: Introduction to Media and Communication
    MS3030: Dissertation
    MS7006: Global Affairs - Actors, Communication and Culture
    MS7310: Strategic Communications Management

    SY3099: Identity Troubles: Nationalism, Jihadism and the Far Right
    SY7006/SY7045: Philosophy of Social Science

    SS7200: Research Philosophy

As contributor (selection)

    MS2002: Analysing Communication Processes
    MS3003: Science, Environment and Risk Communication
    MS7004: Media and Communication Research Methods
    MS7306: Advertising Research Methods

Selected conference presentations include:

Lubarda, B. and Forchtner, B., Far-right ecologism(s) in Europe. Webinar Populism and Far-Right Trends in Europe. Catholic University of Milan. 13 April 2022.

Forchtner, B., Narrative and emancipation: Habermas, storytelling and collective learning processes. Workshop on Narratives in East Asia and Beyond –
Debating Narrative's Limits, Prospects and Linkages Across Disciplines. University of Duisburg-Essen. 14-22 March 2022.

Forchtner, B., The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS): Analysing discourse and narrative. Renmin University of China, Beijing. 7 May 2021.

Forchtner, B., The Far Right and the Environment: Identity, Homeland and Climate Change. S&D Group, European Parliament. European Parliament, Brussels, 18 December 2020.

Forchtner, B., Far-right ethnonationalism and the environment: ecofascism and beyond. CENS Webinar Series Age of Rages. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 2 June 2020.

Forchtner, B., Food for Volk: “The politics of soil” in the German Extreme right today. Food and Ideological Extremism: Philosophical and Empirical Dimensions. University of Milan, Milan. 5 February 2020.

Forchtner, B., Far-right ecology and climate change (scepticisms) in Europe. What is going on? Political Ecologies of the Far Right. Lund University, Lund. 15-16 November 2019.

Forchtner, B., Äpfel – Wölfe – Klimawandel. Die radikale Rechte und der Schutz der Umwelt. Expert meeting on Populismus, Nationalismus und Desinformation und die Zukunft der internationalen Klima- und Energiepolitik. adelphi, Berlin. 8 May 2019.

Forchtner, B., The natural environments of the German far right. On ladybirds, climate change and the Holocaust. Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Public lecture. Leicester. 5 December 2018.

Forchtner, B., Emotions, populism and collective learning: analysing narratives by populists from the right and the left. The New Right and the New Left. Continuity, Rupture and the Politics of Emotion in Europe. London, LSE. 12 November 2018.

Forchtner, B., German neo-Nazi activism in the 21st century: online and offline. Neo-Nazi activism and terrorism in the UK and Germany: social movements, radicalisation, and the new media. Research seminar at the University of Leicester, Leicester, 18 April 2018.

Forchtner, B., Articulating global climate change in the European Parliament: the case of the Far-Right. Contesting the Populist Challenge: Beyond ‘Orbanism’ and ‘Trumpism’ and the Normalisation of Exclusion.Malmö. 16 November – 17 November 2017.

Forchtner, B., Climate change communication by far and extreme right parties in the European Parliament. Conference on Communication and Environment 2017.Leicester. 29 June – 2 July2017.

Forchtner, B., Networks of scepticism and denial? Far right environmental communication about climate change. IAMCR 2016. Leicester. 27-31 July.

Forchtner, B., Unpacking far right discourses about climate change: scepticism and denial by anti-Islam and National Socialist actors in Germany. CADAAD 2016.Catania. 5-7 September 2016.

Forchtner, B. and Kølvraa, C., Radical imaginaries: multimodal representations of ‘History’, ‘Nature’ and ‘Gender Roles’ on German extreme right Facebook pages. CADAAD 2016. Catania. 5-7 September 2016.

Forchtner, B., Networks of scepticism and denial? Far-right environmental risk communication about climate change.IAMCR 2016. Leicester. 27-31 July 2016.

Forchtner, B., Nature and ‘counter-modernity’: reproducing ideas of national purity and sovereignty in radical right discourses on ecological crises. ESA 2015. Prague. 25-28 August 2015.

Irit, D., Efe, I. and Forchtner, B., Debating circumcision in Germany, Israel and Turkey: the negotiation of bodies and differences. ESA 2015. Prague. 25-28 August 2015.

Forchtner, B. and Tominc, A., Kalashnikov and cooking-spoon: neo-Nazism, veganism and lifestyle in Germany. Eating Otherwise. Lancaster, United Kingdom. 28 February-1 March 2015.

Forchtner, B., Playing fields of collective learning: Bourdieu, Critical Theory and the Discourse Historical Approach. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. Budapest, Hungary. 1-3 September 2014.

Forchtner, B., Far-right discourses on the environment: the Austrian case. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. Budapest, Hungary. 1-3 September 2014.

Forchtner, B. and Kølvraa, C., Making anti-war history in Europe – once and for all. Resisting War in the 20th Century. Lisbon, Portugal. 27 February-1 March 2014.

Forchtner, B., Communicating environmental crises: sovereignty, ‘risk society’, and the far-right. ESA 2013. Torino, Italy. 28-31 August 2013.

Forchtner, B. and Weicht, B.,Performing euthanasia: civil society on ageing, free will and a fulfilled life. ESA 2013. Torino, Italy. 28-31 August 2013.

Forchtner, B. and Kølvraa, C., Glocalising the “age of apology” in the genre of EUropean speculative speeches. SLE. Stockholm, Sweden. 29 August-1 September 2012.

Forchtner, B., On the discursive construction of a “new Europe”: from “bitter past” to self-righteousness? Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines 2012. Braga, Portugal. 4-6 July 2012.

Forchtner, B., The discursive construction of ‘post-national Europe’ via the (mis)uses of ‘historia magistra vitae’ and rhetorics of judge-penitence. 6th European Consortium for Political Science. Reykjavik, Iceland. 25-27 August 2011.

Forchtner, B. and Tominc, A., Is the Pragma-Dialectical theory of argumentation an obstacle for a coherent notion of emancipatory critique in the Discourse-Historical Approach? Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines 2010. Łodz, Poland. 13-15 September 2010.

Forchtner, B., Multilingual practices in the European Commission: power in meetings. Sociolinguistik Symposium. Southampton, United Kingdom. 1-4 September 2010.

Forchtner, B. and Tominc, A., Rationality in Pragma-Dialectics: Critical Rationalism or the communication a priori? 7th Conference on Argumentation of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 29 June - 02 July 2010.

Forchtner, B., How Albert Camus met Anders Fogh Rasmussen, or: how confessions of wrongdoing legitimise the claim for moral superiority in post-1989 Denmark and beyond. Post-War Memory of the Holocaust in Europe. Copenhagen, Denmark. 26-27 May 2010.

Forchtner, B., Claiming the moral high-ground via misuses of public acknowledgments of wrong-doing: judge-penitence in Denmark and Germany. New Perspectives in Memory Studies. Rethinking Movement, Representation and Materiality. Vienna, Austria. 12-13 October 2009.

Forchtner, B., Nazi-collaboration, confessions of wrong-doing and the legitimation of the Iraq war in Denmark: a judge-penitent perspective. 2nd International Conference on Political Linguistics. Łodz, Poland. 17-19 September 2009.

Forchtner, B., Albert Camus meets Jürgen Habermas: Europe between judge-penitence and moral-practical learning. UACES Study Group: Values and the European Union – 'What Binds Europeans Together?' Glasgow, United Kingdom. 24-25 April 2009.

Forchtner, B., Confessions of guilt as moral-practical learning or claims to power – the case of the judge-penitent. British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2009. Cardiff, United Kingdom. 15-17 April 2009.

Forchtner, B., Probing the shady side of forgiveness – the 'judge-penitent discourse' as a conceptualisation of the misuse of confessions of guilt. 2nd Global Conference: Forgiveness – Probing the Boundaries. Salzburg, Austria. 13-16 March 2009.

Forchtner, B., Confessions of guilt and the claim for moral superiority – the case of the judge-penitent. Dynamics of Memories. Lancaster, United Kingdom. 28-29 November 2008.

Forchtner, B., Performing the 'judge-penitent' – emergence and regression of the German perpetrator trauma. Cultural Memory: Forgetting to Remember / Remembering to Forget. Kent, United Kingdom. 10-13 September 2008.