Distant Wars Visible: The Ambivalence of Witnessing (Critical American Studies)

In our wired world, visual images of military conflict and political strife are ubiquitous. Far less obvious, far more elusive, is __how__ we see such images, how witnessing military violence and suffering affects us. __Distant Wars Visible__ brings a new perspective to such enduring questions about conflict photography and other forms of visual advocacy, whether in support of U.S. military objectives or in critique of the nation at war. At the book’s center is what author Wendy Kozol calls an analytic of ambivalence—a critical approach to the tensions between spectacle and empathy provoked by gazing at military atrocities and trauma. Through this approach, __Distant Wars Visible__ uses key concepts such as the politics of recoil, the notion of looking elsewhere, skeptical documents, and ethical spectatorship to examine multiple visual cultural practices depicting war, on and off the battlefield, from the 1999 NATO bombings in Kosovo to the present. Kozol’s analysis draws from collections of family photographs, human rights photography, independent film production, photojournalism, and other examples of war’s visual culture, as well as extensive visual evidence of the ways in which U.S. militarism operates to maintain geopolitical dominance—from Fallujah and Abu Ghraib to the most recent drone strikes in Pakistan. Throughout, Kozol reveals how factors such as gender, race, and sexuality construct competing visualizations of identity in a range of media from graphic narrative and film to conflict photography and battlefield souvenirs—and how contingencies and contradictions in visual culture shape the politics and ethics of witnessing. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Cover 1 Contents 6 Introduction: Looking Elsewhere 8 1. Domesticating War in Kosovo: Media Witnessing and Transnational Motherhood 30 2. Human Rights, Visual Rhetoric: Photojournalism and the War in Afghanistan 68 3. Precarity in the Night Sky: Missile Defense Advocacy and the U.S. Surveillance Regime 102 4. Battlefield Trophies: Soldiers’ Archives and the Affective Politics of Recoil 134 5. Skeptical Documents: Toward an Ethics of Spectatorship 172 Conclusion: From the Sky, on the Ground 206 Acknowledgments 214 Notes 218 Bibliography 234 Index 254 A 254 B 256 C 257 D 258 E 258 F 259 G 259 H 260 I 261 J 262 K 262 L 263 M 263 N 266 O 267 P 267 R 269 S 270 T 273 U 274 V 274 W 276 Y 278 Z 278 Introduction: Looking Elsewhere -- Domesticating War In Kosovo: Media Witnessing And Transnational Motherhood -- Human Rights, Visual Rhetoric: Photojournalism And The War In Afghanistan -- Precarity In The Night Sky: Missile Defense Advocacy And The U.s. Surveillance Regime -- Battlefield Trophies: Soldiers' Archives And The Affective Politics Of Recoil -- Skeptical Documents: Toward An Ethics Of Spectatorship -- Conclusion: From The Sky, On The Ground. Wendy Kozol. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Mode Of Access: World Wide Web. 'Distant Wars Visible' brings a new perspective to the enduring question about the efficacy of conflict photography and other forms of visual advocacy. In the twenty-first century, visuality has been a pivotal technology in the United States' militaristic pursuit of its national security objectives as well as in critiques of the nation at war. This book analyses both mainstream media and alternative and radical visual projects to understand how representations of U.S. militarism navigate in, through, and around national security logics