Warscapes
Mediating Militarized Environments
Will be published approx. on 8. September 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
226 pages
978-1-9788-4574-9 (ISBN)
Description
What do we see when we look at a battlefield? How do we come to understand environments as battlefields in the first place? What happens to our perception of war when we focus on the physical spaces of conflict? Warscapes is the first collection to pursue answers to such questions by considering the relationship between war, environment, and media along three lines: imagined geographies of control that prefigure environments as spaces of war; representations of resistance to occupation and ecocidal violence; and elemental reframings of archives and cultural memories of war. This book offers novel perspectives on historical conflict environments while also examining how hypothetical spaces of conflict are imagined. Deploying theoretical perspectives gleaned from film and media studies, ecocriticism, environmental history, urban studies, and postcolonial/decolonial studies, among others, authors highlight an international spectrum of 21st-century fiction films and television series, documentaries, and video installations that challenge how we look at war.
Reviews / Votes
"Warscapes deploys multiple insightful lenses through which to analyze and reframe the range of meanings embedded in and surrounding war environments. This fascinating set of essays provides a timely approach to the legacy of war making and slow violence, revealing new understudied ecocritical territories." - Anna Froula, professor of English at East Carolina University"The injunction 'Shoot!' commands both cinema and warfare, each framing ecologies to intervene in them via complex and sometimes contradictory intents. This far-reaching, far-ranging volume teases out the interweavings of bellicosity and visual representation in compelling, consequential fashion. A rich volume with telling insights at every turn." - Dana Polan, Martin Scorsese Professor of Cinema at New York University
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New Brunswick NJ
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
18 B-W images
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-9788-4574-9 (9781978845749)
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
Persons
Cortland Rankin is an assistant professor of film studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is the author of Decline and Reimagination in Cinematic New York.
Brady Fletcher is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Rochester in New York.
Brady Fletcher is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Rochester in New York.
Content
Introduction: Situational Awareness: Orienting the Study of War, Environment, and Media
CORTLAND RANKIN AND BRADY FLETCHER
Part I Area of Operations: Mapping Militarized Geographies
1 Exposed Facades: Documentary Constructions of Urban Training Centers as Countergeographies of American Military Urbanism
CORTLAND RANKIN
2 Neocolonial Warscapes: The Militarized Jungles of Twenty-First- Century Action-Adventure Cinema
TATIANA KONRAD
3 "Man's Determined Assault on the Secrets of Space": Thinking Militarized Astronautics and Extraterrestrial Environmentality with For All Mankind
BRADY FLETCHER
Part II War-Torn: Occupation, Resistance, and Environmental Violence
4 Night Raiders: Indigenous Cinema Illuminates Colonial-Capitalist Warfare
CYNTHIA BARON
5 Ecocide in Ukraine: Environmental Violence and War in Valentyn Vasyanovych's Atlantis
HALEY LAURILA
6 Pan, Tilt, Zoom: Witnessing the Occupation of East Jerusalem in The Neighbour Before the House
HUGO L JUNGBAECK
Part III Aftermath: Reframing the Memory of War Through Elemental Media
7 The Dust of War: Rethinking the Global War on Terror's Iconic Dust
RENEE PASTEL
8 How to Look at Ice: The Ice Road in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Visual Canon of the Leningrad Siege
NATALIJA ARLAUSKAITE
9 Changes of State: Water as Medium and the Fog of War in John Akomfrah's Mimesis: African Soldier
LAWRENCE ALEXANDER
Conclusion: Special Reconnaissance Operations: How to Look for Warscapes
CORTLAND RANKIN AND BRADY FLETCHER
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Index
CORTLAND RANKIN AND BRADY FLETCHER
Part I Area of Operations: Mapping Militarized Geographies
1 Exposed Facades: Documentary Constructions of Urban Training Centers as Countergeographies of American Military Urbanism
CORTLAND RANKIN
2 Neocolonial Warscapes: The Militarized Jungles of Twenty-First- Century Action-Adventure Cinema
TATIANA KONRAD
3 "Man's Determined Assault on the Secrets of Space": Thinking Militarized Astronautics and Extraterrestrial Environmentality with For All Mankind
BRADY FLETCHER
Part II War-Torn: Occupation, Resistance, and Environmental Violence
4 Night Raiders: Indigenous Cinema Illuminates Colonial-Capitalist Warfare
CYNTHIA BARON
5 Ecocide in Ukraine: Environmental Violence and War in Valentyn Vasyanovych's Atlantis
HALEY LAURILA
6 Pan, Tilt, Zoom: Witnessing the Occupation of East Jerusalem in The Neighbour Before the House
HUGO L JUNGBAECK
Part III Aftermath: Reframing the Memory of War Through Elemental Media
7 The Dust of War: Rethinking the Global War on Terror's Iconic Dust
RENEE PASTEL
8 How to Look at Ice: The Ice Road in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Visual Canon of the Leningrad Siege
NATALIJA ARLAUSKAITE
9 Changes of State: Water as Medium and the Fog of War in John Akomfrah's Mimesis: African Soldier
LAWRENCE ALEXANDER
Conclusion: Special Reconnaissance Operations: How to Look for Warscapes
CORTLAND RANKIN AND BRADY FLETCHER
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Index