Crisis in ancient and contemporary uses

Abstract By echoing and altering the title of Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal book ( 1980 ), Crises we live by stresses the role of embodied crisis experience(s). This introduction deepens our understanding of how the concept of crisis is conceptualised through a cluster of cognitive metaphors (activated or emphasised in line with recent or historical memories, political intentions, etc.), and additionally depends on a continuous re-elaboration over time and different cultural contexts. Being entirely embedded in Western tradition (and stemming from an Ancient Greek word), “crisis” has been permeated by the experiences and accounts of previous critical events (such as natural disasters, pandemics, and wars), which are part of collective memory and thus, through a metonymic process, stand for crisis.