New Directions in International Studies

Aftershocks of the New

Feminism and Film History

Rutgers University Press

The beginning of this century has brought with it a host of assumptions about the newness of our technologies, globalized economies, and transnational media practices. Our own time is a period marked by experiences of fragmentation, sensation, and shock. The essays here are joined by a common concern to chart another side to modernity—precisely after the shock of the new—when the new ceases to be shocking, and when the extraordinary and the sensational become linked to the boring and the everyday. Patrice Petro explores how the mechanisms of modernism, German cinema, and feminist film theory have evolved, and she discusses the directions in which they are headed.

More info

Global Cities

Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age

Edited by Patrice Petro and Linda Krause

Rutgers University Press

In Global Cities, scholars from an impressive array of disciplines critique the growing body of literature on the process broadly known as "globalization." This interdisciplinary focus enables the authors to explore the complex geographies of modern cities, and offer possible strategies for reclaiming a sense of place and community in these globalized urban settings. While examining major cities including New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, and Hong Kong, contributors insist that the study of urban experiences must remain as attentive to the material effects as to the psychic and social consequences of globalization.

More info

Rethinking Global Security

Media, Popular Culture, and the "War on Terror"

Edited by Andrew Martin and Patrice Petro; By Wendy Kozol, Marcus Bullock, James Castonguay, Mary Layoun, Rebecca Decola, Patricia Mellencamp, Tony Grajeda, Mike Allen, Robert Ricigliano, Doug Davis, and Lisa Parks

Rutgers University Press

In Rethinking Global Security , Andrew Martin and Patrice Petro bring together ten path-breaking essays that explore the ways that our notions of fear, insecurity, and danger are fostered by intermediary sources such as television, radio, film, satellite imaging, and the Internet. The contributors, who represent a wide variety of disciplines, including communications, art history, media studies, women's studies, and literature, show how both fictional and fact-based threats to global security have helped to create and sustain a culture that is deeply distrustful-of images, stories, reports, and policy decisions. Topics range from the Patriot Act, to the censorship of media personalities such as Howard Stern, to the role that Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other television programming play as an interpretative frame for current events.

More info

Beyond Terror

Gender, Narrative, Human Rights

By Elizabeth Goldberg

Rutgers University Press

In traditional narrative contexts-legal, psychoanalytic, and documentary-the ethics of representing violations of human rights are widely acknowledged. But what are the principles that guide the creation and dissemination of historically based fictional narratives? Are such representations capable of shaping, changing, or even effectively depicting "real" human atrocities? How do existing ideas about gender influence the way these narratives are written and perceived?

More info

Aftermaths

Exile, Migration, and Diaspora Reconsidered

Edited by Marcus Bullock and Peter Y. Paik

Rutgers University Press

Aftermaths is a collection of essays offering compelling new ideas on exile, migration, and diaspora that have emerged in the global age. The ten contributors—well-established scholars and promising new voices—work in different disciplines and draw from diverse backgrounds as they present rich case studies from around the world. In seeking fresh perspectives on the movement of people and ideas, the essays included here look to the power of the aesthetic experience, especially in literature and film, to unsettle existing theoretical paradigms and enable the rethinking of conventionalized approaches.

More info

Indianizing Film

Decolonization, the Andes, and the Question of Technology

By Freya Schiwy

Rutgers University Press

Latin American indigenous media production has recently experienced a noticeable boom, specifically in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia. Indianizing Film zooms in on a selection of award-winning and widely influential fiction and docudrama shorts, analyzing them in the wider context of indigenous media practices and debates over decolonizing knowledge. Within this framework, Freya Schiwy approaches questions of gender, power, and representation.

More info

Digital Dilemmas

The State, the Individual, and Digital Media in Cuba

By Cristina Venegas

Rutgers University Press

Digital Dilemmas views Cuba from the Soviet Union's demise to the present, to assess how conflicts over media access play out in their both liberating and repressive potential. Drawing on extensive scholarship and interviews, Cristina Venegas questions myths of how Internet use necessarily fosters global democracy and reveals the impact of new technologies on the country's governance and culture. She includes film in the context of broader media history, as well as artistic practices such as digital art and networks of diasporic communities connected by the Web. This book is a model for understanding the geopolitic location of power relations in the age of digital information sharing.

More info

Beyond Globalization

Making New Worlds in Media, Art, and Social Practices

Edited by A. Aneesh, Lane Hall, and Patrice Petro

Rutgers University Press

Beyond Globalization highlights how mediated practices have become integral to global culture; how social practices have emerged out of computer-related industries; how contemporary apocalyptic narratives reflect the anxieties of a U.S. culture facing global challenges; and how design, play, and technology help us understand the histories and ideals behind the digital architectures that mediate our everyday actions. This provocative volume brings together the best new work of scholars within such diverse fields as history, sociology, anthropology, film, media studies, and art.

More info

Narrative Landmines

Rumors, Islamist Extremism, and the Struggle for Strategic Influence

By Daniel Leonard Bernardi, Pauline Hope Cheong, Chris Lundry, and Scott W. Ruston

Rutgers University Press

Narrative Landmines explores how rumors fit into and extend narrative systems and ideologies, particularly in the context of terrorism, counter-terrorism, and extremist insurgencies. Beyond face-to-face communication, this book also addresses the role of new and social media in the creation and spread of rumors. Its concern is to foster a more sophisticated understanding of how oral and digital cultures work alongside economic, diplomatic, and cultural factors that influence the struggles between states and non-state actors in the proverbial battle of hearts and minds. By providing fresh data from Singapore, Iraq, and Indonesia, the authors make a compelling argument for understanding rumors in these contexts as “narrative IEDs”, weapons that can aid the extremist cause.

More info

Narrative Landmines

Rumors, Islamist Extremism, and the Struggle for Strategic Influence

By Daniel Leonard Bernardi, Pauline Hope Cheong, Chris Lundry, and Scott W. Ruston

Rutgers University Press

Narrative Landmines explores how rumors fit into and extend narrative systems and ideologies, particularly in the context of terrorism, counter-terrorism, and extremist insurgencies. Beyond face-to-face communication, this book also addresses the role of new and social media in the creation and spread of rumors. Its concern is to foster a more sophisticated understanding of how oral and digital cultures work alongside economic, diplomatic, and cultural factors that influence the struggles between states and non-state actors in the proverbial battle of hearts and minds. By providing fresh data from Singapore, Iraq, and Indonesia, the authors make a compelling argument for understanding rumors in these contexts as “narrative IEDs”, weapons that can aid the extremist cause.

More info