Stacey Peebles
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449468
- eISBN:
- 9780801460944
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449468.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war ...
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Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war stories in prose, poetry, and film that speak to the American soldier’s experience in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Stories about war always encompass ideas about initiation, masculinity, cross-cultural encounters, and trauma. The book shows us how these timeless themes find new expression among a generation of soldiers who have grown up in a time when it has been more acceptable than ever before to challenge cultural and societal norms, and who now have unprecedented and immediate access to the world away from the battlefield through new media and technology. Two Gulf War memoirs provide a portrait of soldiers living and fighting on the cusp of the major political and technological changes that would begin in earnest just a few years later. The Iraq War, a much longer conflict, has given rise to more and various representations. Books and other media emerging from the conflicts in the Gulf have yet to receive the kind of serious attention that Vietnam War texts received during the 1980s and 1990s. The book provokes much discussion among those who wish to understand today’s war literature and films and their place in the tradition of war representation more generally.Less
Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war stories in prose, poetry, and film that speak to the American soldier’s experience in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Stories about war always encompass ideas about initiation, masculinity, cross-cultural encounters, and trauma. The book shows us how these timeless themes find new expression among a generation of soldiers who have grown up in a time when it has been more acceptable than ever before to challenge cultural and societal norms, and who now have unprecedented and immediate access to the world away from the battlefield through new media and technology. Two Gulf War memoirs provide a portrait of soldiers living and fighting on the cusp of the major political and technological changes that would begin in earnest just a few years later. The Iraq War, a much longer conflict, has given rise to more and various representations. Books and other media emerging from the conflicts in the Gulf have yet to receive the kind of serious attention that Vietnam War texts received during the 1980s and 1990s. The book provokes much discussion among those who wish to understand today’s war literature and films and their place in the tradition of war representation more generally.
Lisa Purse and Ute Wölfel
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474446266
- eISBN:
- 9781474495141
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474446266.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter introduces the anthology’s focus on figures of transgression in war representation by locating the concept of transgression itself within the context of the political polarisations and ...
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This chapter introduces the anthology’s focus on figures of transgression in war representation by locating the concept of transgression itself within the context of the political polarisations and social destabilisations of the 21st century. As ‘architectures of enmity’ increasingly dictate political rhetoric, acts of transgression enfold their potential to radically challenge accepted allegiances, disturb dominant hierarchies, and contest received wisdom.
This chapter argues that cinema, and cultural representation more generally, are privileged sites at which war and its effects are reflected upon; they can shore up established ‘war scripts’, or create space for counter-narratives and a more reflective approach to war’s effects on people. Figures of transgression – those who transgress the borders between enemy and friend, perpetrator and victim – are import to centre for critical analysis because they are crucial to the ways in which cultural productions seek to understand war and its aftermath, reflect on dominant narratives about who wages war and why, and reflect on its consequences for people, communities and nations.Less
This chapter introduces the anthology’s focus on figures of transgression in war representation by locating the concept of transgression itself within the context of the political polarisations and social destabilisations of the 21st century. As ‘architectures of enmity’ increasingly dictate political rhetoric, acts of transgression enfold their potential to radically challenge accepted allegiances, disturb dominant hierarchies, and contest received wisdom.
This chapter argues that cinema, and cultural representation more generally, are privileged sites at which war and its effects are reflected upon; they can shore up established ‘war scripts’, or create space for counter-narratives and a more reflective approach to war’s effects on people. Figures of transgression – those who transgress the borders between enemy and friend, perpetrator and victim – are import to centre for critical analysis because they are crucial to the ways in which cultural productions seek to understand war and its aftermath, reflect on dominant narratives about who wages war and why, and reflect on its consequences for people, communities and nations.
Mark Hewitson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198787457
- eISBN:
- 9780191829468
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198787457.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
Representations of war changed between 1792 and 1815, as the nature of warfare altered and as a succession of conflicts, waged by seven separate coalitions, affected all the German lands. Most ...
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Representations of war changed between 1792 and 1815, as the nature of warfare altered and as a succession of conflicts, waged by seven separate coalitions, affected all the German lands. Most notably, long-established critiques of absolutism and hopes of a long-lasting or perpetual peace were eclipsed by new conceptions of ‘revolutionary’ conflict and wars of the ‘Volk’. Much of the historiographical debate about contemporaries’ attitudes to war rests less on contested interpretations of press reports and literary depictions than on disputed assessments of the significance of such representations. The chapter examines the relationship between patriotism, nationalism, and belligerence in newspapers, literature, and paintings. It argues that a reading ‘public’ in the German lands did have access to an increasing number of such accounts, as the wars succeeded one another, censorship was relaxed, public spheres developed, and the possibility—or, even, need—of a coordinated national campaign against Napoleonic France arose.Less
Representations of war changed between 1792 and 1815, as the nature of warfare altered and as a succession of conflicts, waged by seven separate coalitions, affected all the German lands. Most notably, long-established critiques of absolutism and hopes of a long-lasting or perpetual peace were eclipsed by new conceptions of ‘revolutionary’ conflict and wars of the ‘Volk’. Much of the historiographical debate about contemporaries’ attitudes to war rests less on contested interpretations of press reports and literary depictions than on disputed assessments of the significance of such representations. The chapter examines the relationship between patriotism, nationalism, and belligerence in newspapers, literature, and paintings. It argues that a reading ‘public’ in the German lands did have access to an increasing number of such accounts, as the wars succeeded one another, censorship was relaxed, public spheres developed, and the possibility—or, even, need—of a coordinated national campaign against Napoleonic France arose.
Daniel D. Hutto and Erik Myin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036115
- eISBN:
- 9780262339773
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036115.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Chapter 3 introduces the contours of REC’s positive program for relating to and allying with other major theories of cognition. In these efforts it aims to provide analyses and arguments designed to ...
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Chapter 3 introduces the contours of REC’s positive program for relating to and allying with other major theories of cognition. In these efforts it aims to provide analyses and arguments designed to sanitize, strengthen, and unify existing representational and antirepresentational offerings. This theoretical work takes the form of RECtification—a process through which the target accounts of cognition are radicalized by analysis and argument, rendering them REC-friendly. This chapter shows how this process works in action by targeting Predictive Processing accounts of Cognition, or PPC. Some theorists have already argued that it is fruitful to combine PPC with E-theories of cognition. Yet they continue subscribe to a cognitivist reading of PPC. This chapter shows how an alliance between PPC with E-theories of cognition can only be properly forged, by giving the central ideas of PPC a REC rendering. It also shows why this crucial adjustment to PPC avoids crippling problems. This reveals why allying with REC is independently well motivated and theoretically beneficial.Less
Chapter 3 introduces the contours of REC’s positive program for relating to and allying with other major theories of cognition. In these efforts it aims to provide analyses and arguments designed to sanitize, strengthen, and unify existing representational and antirepresentational offerings. This theoretical work takes the form of RECtification—a process through which the target accounts of cognition are radicalized by analysis and argument, rendering them REC-friendly. This chapter shows how this process works in action by targeting Predictive Processing accounts of Cognition, or PPC. Some theorists have already argued that it is fruitful to combine PPC with E-theories of cognition. Yet they continue subscribe to a cognitivist reading of PPC. This chapter shows how an alliance between PPC with E-theories of cognition can only be properly forged, by giving the central ideas of PPC a REC rendering. It also shows why this crucial adjustment to PPC avoids crippling problems. This reveals why allying with REC is independently well motivated and theoretically beneficial.
