Curating and Re-Curating the American Wars in Vietnam and Iraq

Christine Sylvester has produced a book that retheorizes how war is represented. She does so through a series of unconventional framings and stories that push the boundaries of what has traditionally been conceived of as war studies. It is a masterful example of the way narrative work can generate knowledge, with key insights on the individual experience of war inside and outside the traditional war theater. * Perspectives on Politics *
How do we remember? Who or what is left out of memory, and for what purposes? Similarly, who and for what reasons are others left in? Sylvester charts an evocative path through symbols, literary and artistic, that burns great holes through all that is merely official in the memories of war in Vietnam and Iraq. * Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of London *
This book makes an insightful and truly interdisciplinary contribution to the study of war. Drawing from Memory Studies, International Relations, Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies, and Ethnography, Professor Sylvester traces how difficult wars are mediated through official and localised curation practices-advancing, once again, our knowledge of war's ownership and warexperience in the contemporary era * Charlotte Heath-Kelly, Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies,University of Warwick, UK *
Once again, Christine Sylvester wows the reader with her compelling, creative, and deeply intelligent way of asking and addressing the imperative questions of global politics. In this rich and wonderfully written book, Sylvester invites us on a fascinating journey through war museums and memorials, novels and memoirs, and compels us to revisit how we understand, remember, forget, and imagine war. This book is clearly a must-read for those who reflect on war, and its subjects, objects, and experiences within the fields of International Relations, War Studies, Critical Military Studies, and Feminist Theory, those who are touched by the specific wars addressed in these pages, and all of us who-by the mere fact that we live in today's global conjuncture-want to rethink militarism and warring * Maria Stern, Professor of Peace and Development Studies, Gothenburg University. *
Focusing her attention on the 'objects' of war, Christine Sylvester challenges the discipline of International Relations to take account of the bodily and bloody effects of war. Demonstrating that war is experienced and felt long after its supposed 'end' and far away from its battle zones, and that authoritative knowledge of it is found in oft-ignored sites, this book is a vital corrective to a discipline that frequently de-peoples and sanitizes the act of warring. * Julia Welland, Assistant Professor of War Studies, University of Warwick, UK *
"From her brilliant opening excursus of Pollock's 'Blue Poles' to her revelatory analysis of who remembers our contemporary wars, how, why, and to what aesthetic and political ends, Christine Sylvester's Curating and Re-curating the American Wars in Vietnam and Iraqis a stunning achievement. Lucidly written, powerfully argued, and beautifully illustrated, every insight of every chapter made me see these wars and their sites of memory as if for the first time. An exquisite 'tour de force' in every way." -- James E. Young, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst