Interpreting Violence
Narrative, Ethics and Hermeneutics
Cassandra Falke editor Hanna Meretoja editor Victoria Fareld editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:8th Oct '24
£39.99
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£125.00(9781032035727)
Representations of violence surround us in everyday life – in news reports, films and novels – inviting interpretation and raising questions about the ethics of viewing or reading about harm done to others. How can we understand the processes of meaning-making involved in interpreting violent events and experiences? And can these acts of interpretation themselves be violent by reproducing the violence that they represent? This book examines the ethics of engaging with violent stories from a broad hermeneutic perspective. It offers multidisciplinary perspectives on the sense-making involved in interpreting violence in its various forms, from blatant physical violence to less visible forms that may inhere in words or in the social and political order of our societies. By focusing on different ways of narrating violence and on the cultural and paradigmatic forms that govern such narrations, Interpreting Violence explores the ethical potential of literature, art and philosophy to expose mechanisms of violence while also recognizing their implication in structures that contribute to or benefit from practices of violence.
"Can violence be narrated? Can language help us understand the pain of others, of ourselves? Can words and images give shape to extreme bodily and mental experiences? How do we "interpret" violence and suffering – and can these interpretations be violent themselves? This book raises fundamental questions about the reach and limits of language and human imagination. At the same time, it urges us to radically think through – supported by a rich repertoire of philosophical, narrative, and cultural concepts – the nature of violence and the entire range of its brutal and subtle forms."
-Jens Brockmeier, Professor of Psychology, The American University of Paris, France
"The title InterpretingViolence immediately calls up the need for witnessing, that crucial activity that is the only thing we can do. But witnessing, as the first chapter of this book already intimates, is a socio-cultural attitude that can counter the violence of ghoulish reveling - remember Adorno’s warning. The authors, all renowned cultural analysts, delve deep into the many different aspects of the presence of violence in culture; the impossibility yet necessity to represent it. Erasure is no better solution than voyeurism. This is a book that matters."
-Mieke Bal, Cultural analyst and video artist
ISBN: 9781032438443
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 385g
196 pages