In:Crises We Live By: A transdisciplinary study of crisis and its metaphors in their cultural context
Edited by Irene Leonardis
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 20] 2026
► pp. v–vi
Published online: 5 February 2026
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.20.toc
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.20.toc
Table of contents
Prologuevii
Andreas Musolff
Crisis in ancient and contemporary uses: A concept at the crossroads of metaphor and metonymy?1
Irene Leonardis
Section I.Metaphorical linguistic expressions and cognitive metaphors for crisis
Metaphors for crisis in Polybius’ cycle of constitutions
and mixed constitution20
and mixed constitution20
Andreas T. Zanker
Are different ‘crises we live by’ metaphorically conceptualised in different ways? A convergent approach to crisis metaphors in media discourse40
Antonella Luporini
From trauma to reappraising life: Psychological crisis experiences and recovery in first-person accounts of life-changing injuries68
Sara Vilar-Lluch
Section II.Metaphors of physical harm and existential peril
Illness and war: Susan Sontag reconsidered92
Alberto Martinengo
Weathering the storm: Storm metaphors of crisis in Latin109
William Michael Short
“The house is on fire”: Eco-anxiety and dystopian metaphors during the Cop26127
Chiara Gagliano
Metaphor and the representation of COVID-19 in online discourse of solidarity: A case study of English language internet memes150
Maryna Bielova
Section III.Metaphors of imbalance, instability and liminality
Metaphors of ambiguity, uncertainty, and crisis in Early Greek poetry178
Fabian Horn
Metaphorical expressions of crisis and their role in the legitimation of dissent
in Sinic thought: Materials from premodern China and Korea200
in Sinic thought: Materials from premodern China and Korea200
Marion Eggert
Heiner Roetz
Collapse metaphor in Roman political discourse and its legacy220
Irene Leonardis
From a protective space to an erupting crisis: Rousseau, Freud and Blumenberg on mathematics and its metaphors241
Michael Friedman
Afterword261
Irene Leonardis
Index
