Writing/Righting Violence

Catalog description

Theorist Martin Jay writes, "We…live in such a finite economy in which utter redemption from violence is as utopian as redemption through it." State violence is ubiquitous. Whether employed by tyrants, totalitarian regimes, theocracies, or democracies against their subjects or outside their boundaries —it is one the most brutal form of terror. This course examines how violence has been documented, reported, remembered, memorialized, archived, and analyzed. We will interrogate the political, cultural, and commercial forces that shape our understanding of violence, law, and justice—taking examples from the police brutality and violence in the US and how white supremacy and other xenophobic ideologies are reported; the framing of the war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda; how the media reported the War in Afghanistan and Iraq; the framing of Israel/Palestine as a “conflict”; reporting majoritarian violence in India; and how the war narratives have emerged from Sri Lanka. Readings include but not limited to Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place, Eqbal Ahmad; Terrorism: Theirs and Ours; Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy; Didier Fassin, Empire of Trauma; Judith Butler, Frames Of War; and E. Valentine Daniel, Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence.