Bad Language

In 'Bad Language', So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has been used - and abused - in their own life. What is the relationship between language and sexual violence? And how can we 'make ourselves up' in language, when words themselves are encoded by a dominant culture that insists we see ourselves as powerless listeners rather than active speakers? Examining the semantic traps of their own multi-lingual childhood - and taking in texts from the Torah to Grimms' Fairytales, from protest march bust cards to the works of Ursula K. Le Guin - Mayer asks who gets to speak, and who is forced into silence.