Ideas Worth Subtitling: Ted Talks and the Cognitive Map of Europe

This paper takes as its starting point such conceptual metaphors as “Europe is a blended space" and "Europe is a possible world" as exemplified by a series of subtitled conferences on Europe freely available at the website TED.com in order to advance a new reading of subtitling, one which sees this medium as a co-creational and cognitive practice. Such Ted conferences as “Our Refugee System if Failing. Here’s How We Can Fix It” by Alexander Betts, “Two Nameless Bodies Washed Up On The Beach. Here Are Their Stories” by Anders Fjellberg and the TED interview with António Guterres not only examine their own detailed blueprints of the refugee crisis in Europe, but are also audio-visual narratives examining the relationship between ideas and media. I intend to track through these references and look at the issues -- the role of media in the spreading of ideas, subtitling strategies for producing a positive cognitive effect in the viewers, etc. -- which they raise. But my central purpose will be to re-read the aforementioned series of TED conferences on Europe from a cognitive perspective. I will analyse the cognitive map of Europe as a community unprepared to welcome millions of desperate refugees. Through blending, parabolic mapping and conceptual metaphors, I suggest, subtitling TED conferences acquires a cultural valence in the sharing of worthy ideas in the contemporary audio-visual Europe.