
Disappearing War
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cinema and Erasure in the Post-9/11 World
Edinburgh University Press
90th Edition
Published on 10. August 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-1-4744-3752-3 (ISBN)
Description
The battles fought in the name of the 'war on terror' have re-ignited questions about the changing nature of war, and the experience of war for those geographically distant from its real world consequences. What is missing from our highly mediated experience of war? What are the intentional and unintentional processes of erasure through which the distortion happens? What are their consequences?
Cinema is a key site at which questions about our highly mediated experience of war can be addressed or, more significantly, elided. Looking at a range of films that have provoked debate, from award-winning features like Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper, to documentaries like Kill List and Dirty Wars, as well as at the work of visual artists like Harun Farocki and Omer Fast, this book examines the practices of erasure in the cinematic representation of recent military interventions. Drawing on representations of war-related death, dying and bodily damage, this provocative collection addresses 'what's missing' in existing scholarly responses to modern warfare; in film studies, as well as in politics and international relations.
Cinema is a key site at which questions about our highly mediated experience of war can be addressed or, more significantly, elided. Looking at a range of films that have provoked debate, from award-winning features like Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper, to documentaries like Kill List and Dirty Wars, as well as at the work of visual artists like Harun Farocki and Omer Fast, this book examines the practices of erasure in the cinematic representation of recent military interventions. Drawing on representations of war-related death, dying and bodily damage, this provocative collection addresses 'what's missing' in existing scholarly responses to modern warfare; in film studies, as well as in politics and international relations.
Reviews / Votes
From mainstream news coverage of conflict to the use of close-ups in The Master this searching edited collection explores the dialectic between the seen and the unseen in the contemporary war film. The contributors tackle the question of whether the myriad changes to war and the representation of war - via embedded reporting, drones, virtual reality and so on - constitute a deep ideological erasure. Their insights are intellectually and ethically illuminating and advance our understanding of the cultural imagination of war in important ways. -- Guy Westwell, QMULMore details
Edition
90,000 edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
25 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-3752-3 (9781474437523)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Christina Hellmich | Lisa Purse
Disappearing War
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cinema and Erasure in the Post 9/11 World
E-Book
01/2017
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€24.49
Available for download
Persons
Christina Hellmich is Associate Professor in IR & Middle East Studies at the University of Reading Dr Lisa Purse is Associate Professor in Film in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading.
Editor
Associate Professor in IR & Middle East StudiesUniversity of Reading
Associate Professor in FilmUniversity of Reading
Content
IllustrationsContributorsAcknowledgments1. Introduction: Film and the epistemology of war, Christina Hellmich & Lisa Purse 2. Good Kill? U.S. soldiers and the killing of civilians in American film, Cora Sol Goldstein3. '5000 feet is the best': drone warfare, targets, and Paul Virilio's 'accident', Agnieszka Piotrowska 4. Post-heroic war / the body at risk, Robert Burgoyne 5. Disappearing bodies: visualising the Maywand District murders, Thomas Gregory 6. The unknowable soldier: the face of Freddie Quell, James Harvey-Davitt 7. Visible dead bodies and the technologies of erasure in the war on terror, Jessica Auchter 8. Ambiguity, ambivalence and absence in Zero Dark Thirty, Lisa Purse9. Invisible war: broadcast television documentary and Iraq, Janet Harris10. Nine cinematic devices for staging (in)visible war and the (vanishing) colonial present, Shohini Chaudhuri11. Afterword: Reflections on knowing war, Christina Hellmich