The Subject of Torture : Psychoanalysis and Biopolitics in Television and Film

Considering representations of torture in such television series as __24__, __Alias__, and __Homeland__; the documentaries __Taxi to the Dark Side__ (2007), __Ghosts of Abu Ghraib__ (2007), and __Standard Operating Procedure__ (2008); and "torture porn" feature films from the Saw and Hostel series, Hilary Neroni unites aesthetic and theoretical analysis to provide a unique portal into theorizing biopower and its relation to the desiring subject. Her work ultimately showcases film and television studies' singular ability to expose and potentially disable the fantasies that sustain torture and the regimes that deploy it. Introduction: confronting the Abu Ghraib photographs Torture, biopower, and the desiring subject The nonsensical smile of the torturer: documentary form and the logic of enjoyment Torture porn and the desiring subject 24 and the torture fantasy The biotective versus the detective of the real: truth in Zero dark thirty and Homeland Alias and the fictional alternative to torture.