In/visible War

The Culture of War in Twenty-first-Century America

Edited by Jon Simons and John Louis Lucaites; By (photographer) Nina Berman

SERIES: War Culture

Rutgers University Press

In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous, and yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that “America” is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems abstract, or may even seem to have disappeared altogether due to a relative absence of visual images of casualties. Perhaps even more significantly, wars can be fought without sacrifice by the vast majority of Americans.

Yet, the normalization of twenty-first century war also renders it highly visible. War is made visible through popular, commercial, mediated culture. The spectacle of war occupies the contemporary public sphere in the forms of celebrations at athletic events and in films, video games, and other media, coming together as MIME, the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.

In/Visible War is a timely and stimulating collection that offers a fresh and provocative insight into the impact of the 'global war on terror' on American culture and politics.'
John Bodnar, author of The Good War in American Memory

Can a war be hidden in plain sight? Every day. This thoughtful volume explores how contemporary media are normalizing war, and why the paradoxes of war’s invisibility challenge civic spectatorship. Robert Hariman, co-author of No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy

Provocative. H-Net

In/Visible War: the Culture of War in Twenty-First-Century America is an amazing read about images of war and also how we really do not have a clue as to what these men and women in uniform go through on a day-to-day basis. A picture can make us see, but we can never know the 'truth.' Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

JON SIMONS is Reader in Media at Leeds Trinity University, United Kingdom. He is the author or editor of numerous books including Images: A Reader.

JOHN LOUIS LUCAITES is the associate dean for arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences and provost professor of rhetoric in the department of English at Indiana University. His most recent work includes No Caption Needed: Photojournalism, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Paradoxical In/visibility of War
John Louis Lucaites and Jon Simons

Part I: Seeing War
Chapter 1: How Photojournalism Has Framed the War in Afghanistan
David Campbell
Chapter 2: Returning Soldiers and the In/visibility of Combat Trauma
Christopher J. Gilbert and John Louis Lucaites
Chapter 3: (Re)fashioning PTSD’s Warrior Project
Jeremy G. Gordon
Chapter 4: Unremarkable Suffering: Banality, Spectatorship, and War’s In/visibilities
Rebecca A. Adelman and Wendy Kozol
Transition
“War Is Fun,” a Photo-Essay
Nina Berman
Chapter 5: Laying bin Laden to Rest: A Case Study of Terrorism and the Politics of Visibility
Jody Madeira

Part II: Not Seeing War
Chapter 6: Digital War and the Public Mind: Call of Duty Reloaded, Decoded
Roger Stahl
Chapter 7: A Cinema of Consolation: Post-9/11 Super Invasion Fantasy
De Witt Douglas Kilgore
Chapter 8: Differential Configurations: In/visibility through the Lens of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008)
Claudia Breger
Chapter 9: Canine Rescue, Civilian Casualties, and the Long Gulf War
Purnima Bose

Part III: Theorizing the In/visibility of War
Chapter 10: The In/visibility of Liberal Peace: Perpetual Peace and Enduring Freedom
Jon Simons
Chapter 11: Why War? Baudrillard, Derrida, and the Absolute Televisual Image
Diane Rubenstein
Chapter 12: War in the Twenty-first Century: Visible, Invisible, or Superpositional?
James Der Derian

Notes on Contributors
Photo Credits
Index

Related Titles