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George Orwell and the Politics of ‘Stupidity’By Dr. Michael Horacki, University of Regina
Thursday, November 5, 2026
4:00 pm
Admin C280 (Green Room)
105 Administration Place, Saskatoon
Though Winston spends much of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four assessing the intelligence of others (frequently using the term “stupid”), little attention has been paid to the novel’s thematic concern with stupidity.
This talk notes how many of Winston’s assessments are called into question throughout the novel, arguing that Winston is shown to be inept at assessing intellect; this points us to the text’s larger investment in the idea of stupidity as a tool of totalitarianism.
Ultimately, this talk will connect Nineteen Eighty-Four to the assessments of intellect present in Orwell’s earlier writing and to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 1943 analysis of stupidity as a socially generated moral defect, examining Orwell’s investment in the processes involved with shaping and assessing the intelligence of others and the political consequences of the schemata used to judge intelligence.
Michael Horacki completed his PhD in English from the University of Saskatchewan in 2018 and is an instructor in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Regina. Michael’s primary research areas are interwar British literature, modernisms, horror fiction, and assemblage theory.
Regina Exchange: An Annual Presentation by University of Regina Faculty in Exchange with the Department of English
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Event venue
Admin C280, 105 Administration Place, USask, 105 Administration Pl, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A2, Canada
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