Invisibilities Of Political Torture

Examines the ways in which moving images can help us better understand factual political tortureExamines role of images and film in (mis)understanding of tortureOffers synergised knowledge through comparative angle, exploring differences and continuities of torture cases which were documented to vastly different extentsIncludes key popular movies, independent films as well as serial televisionCombines serious film analysis with ethical-political questions and historically and theoretically informed researchExpands on the latest developments of comparative media scholarship, and integrates the nostalgic, material and affective "e;turn."e; Academic work on the subject of torture tends to mirror public debates on its presumed utility, to focus on its historically 'correct' representation or on profilmic structures of identification. This book moves beyond these ideologically charged questions to explore how contemporary films have responded to a growing popular distrust in visual evidence when referencing factual cases of torture. Two cases studies - the United States around 2004 and Chile from 1973 until the end of the dictatorship - provide either an abundance or lack of such visual evidence. Drawing on films and television series such as Zero Dark Thirty (2012), NO (2012), Homeland (2011-) and Los 80 (2008-14), amongst many others, this book analyses the visible components of torture but also its invisibilities. By casting a wider net on the definition of torture, the author promotes a radical, theoretical reframing of our concept of torture and suggests that audiovisual products can help broaden our comprehension of torture as an event which includes collective and emotional dimensions and long-term social effects.

Examines the ways in which moving images can help us better understand factual political torture Examines role of images and film in (mis)understanding of torture Offers synergised knowledge through comparative angle, exploring differences and continuities of torture cases which were documented to vastly different extents Includes key popular movies, independent films as well as serial television Combines serious film analysis with ethical-political questions and historically and theoretically informed research Expands on the latest developments of comparative media scholarship, and integrates the nostalgic, material and affective turn. Academic work on the subject of torture tends to mirror public debates on its presumed utility, to focus on its historically 'correct' representation or on profilmic structures of identification. This book moves beyond these ideologically charged questions to explore how contemporary films have responded to a growing popular distrust in visual evidence when referencing factual cases of torture. Two cases studies - the United States around 2004 and Chile from 1973 until the end of the dictatorship - provide either an abundance or lack of such visual evidence. Drawing on films and television series such as Zero Dark Thirty (2012), NO (2012), Homeland (2011-) and Los 80 (2008-14), amongst many others, this book analyses the visible components of torture but also its invisibilities. By casting a wider net on the definition of torture, the author promotes a radical, theoretical reframing of our concept of torture and suggests that audiovisual products can help broaden our comprehension of torture as an event which includes collective and emotional dimensions and long-term social effects.

By casting a wider net on the definition of torture, the author promotes a radical, theoretical reframing of our concept of torture and suggests that audiovisual products can help broaden our comprehension of torture as an event which includes collective and emotional dimensions and long-term social effects.

Unanimously banned and condemned, torture has been used in many countries throughout the 20th century. Ruxandra Cesereanu’s essay aims to deepen this subject, showing the unimaginable dimensions that human cruelty can sometimes reach. The Armenian Genocide, the Nazi camps, the Gulag, the Military Juntas in Latin America, the totalitarian regimes in Africa and those in Islamic states are just a few examples of the tortures that man can inflict on his fellow men. From the description of the techniques, the motivations and the moments in which acts of savage violence take place to portraits of torturers and the victim, Ruxandra Cesereanu’s book gives us an overview of the phenomenon of torture, to refresh our collective memory.

Political Invisibility and Mobilization explores the unseen opportunities available to those considered irrelevant and disregarded during periods of violent repression. In a comparative study of three women’s peace movements, in Argentina, the former Yugoslavia, and Liberia, the concept of political invisibility is developed to identify the unexpected beneficial effects of marginalization in the face of regime violence and civil war. Each chapter details the unique ways these movements avoided being targeted as threats to regime power and how they utilized free spaces to mobilize for peace. Their organizing efforts among international networks are described as a form of field-shifting that gained them the authority to expand their work at home to bring an end to war and rebuild society. The robust conceptual framework developed herein offers new ways to analyze the variations and nuances of how social status interacts with opportunities for effective activism. This book presents a sophisticated theory of political invisibility with historical detail from three remarkable stories of courage in the face of atrocity. With relevance for political sociology, social movement studies, women’s studies, and peace and conflict studies, it contributes to scholarly understanding of mobilization in repressive states while also offering strategic insight to movement practitioners. Winner of the ASA Peace, War and Social Conflict Section's 2021 Outstanding Book Award.

This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe. As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods. Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.

Beyond the Rhetoric of Pain presents a fresh, interdisciplinary approach to the current research on pain from a variety of scholarly angles within Literature, Film and Media, Game Studies, Art History, Hispanic Studies, Memory Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, and Law. Through the combination of these perspectives, this volume goes beyond the existing structures within and across these disciplines framing new concepts of pain in attitude, practice, language, and ethics of response to pain. Comprised of fourteen unique essays, Beyond the Rhetoric of Pain maintains a common thread of analysis using a historical and cultural lens to explore the rhetoric of pain. Considering various methodologies, this volume questions the ethical, social and political demands pain makes upon those who feel, watch or speak it. Arranged to move from historical cases and relevance of pain in history towards the contemporary movement, topics include pain as a social figure, rhetorical tool, artistic metaphor, and political representation in jurisprudence.

This book examines the figure of the sleeper agent as part of post-9/11 political, journalistic and fictional discourse. There is a tendency to discuss the terroristic threat after 9/11 as either a faraway enemy to be hunted down by military force or, on the other hand, as a ubiquitous, intangible threat that required constant alertness at home. The missing link between these two is the sleeper agent – the foreign enemy hiding among US citizens. By analyzing popular television shows, several US comic books, and a broad variety of Hollywood films that depict sleeper agents direct or allegorically, this book explores how a shift in perspective—from terrorist to sleeper agent—brings new insights into our understanding of post-9/11 representations of terrorism. The book’s interdisciplinary focus between media studies, cultural studies, and American studies, suggests that it will find an audience in a variety of fields, including historical research, narratology, popular culture, as well as media and terrorism studies.