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FACULTY OF HUMANITIES SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES POLITICS COURSE UNIT OUTLINE 2013/14 POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity Semester: 1 Credits: 20

WARNING: Be aware that this course contains images some might find disturbing.

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Lecturers Dr Andreja Zevnik (convener)


Room: Telephone: Email: Office hours: 4.060 Arthur Lewis Building (0161) 2754899 andreja.zevnik@manchester.ac.uk Mondays, 4 5 and Tuesdays, 10 - 11.30 Need to be booked via SOHOL at http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/intranet/ug/sohol/

Dr Emmanuel-Pierre Guittet
Room : Telephone: Email: 4.010 Arthur Lewis Building (0161) 2754877 emmanuel-pierre.guittet@manchester.ac.uk http://emmanuelpierreguittet.com Tuesdays, 10 12

Office hours:

Administrator: Lectures:

Julie Tierney and Chantel Riley, UG Office G.001 Arthur Lewis Building Mondays, 1-3pm; venue Humanities Brid St. G33 (weeks 2-3, 5-12) Crawford House TH 2 (week 4) October 28 November 3 2013 Allocate yourself to a tutorial group using the Student System.

Reading Week: Tutorials:

Mode of assessment: Tutorial presentation/participation (15%) 1500 words review (20%) 3500 word essay (65%) ***IMPORTANT INFORMATION PLEASE READ*** Review hand in date: Monday, November 11 2013, 2pm, Arthur Lewis Foyer Essay hand in date: Monday, January 13 2014, 2pm, Arthur Lewis Foyer

Communication: Students must read their University e-mails regularly, as important information will be communicated in this way. Examination period: 13/1/2014 26/1/2014 12/5/2014 8/6/2014 Re-sit examination period: 18/8/2014 31/8/2014

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity


COURSE OVERVIEW
The course will provide advanced theoretical, empirical and methodological engagement with topics that due to their traumatic, disturbing or in any other way ab-normal appearance remain unrepresented or under-theorised in political and international arena. It will be divided into three sections. The first section will discuss theoretical approaches helpful in studying obscene, excluded or invisible in political and international sphere. The second section will discuss the various material manifestations of obscenity; and the final section will re-introduce the obscene moment to international political sphere.

COURSE AIMS
The course unit aims to: Introduce students to the side of politics that commonly remains unrepresented. Examine a variety of political, social and religious imagery to identify that which commonly remains unrepresented in international political domain. Engage and consider theoretical and conceptual challenges when dealing with issue that political scholarship know nothing or very little about or are for other reasons (obscenity, profanity, trauma) difficult to access. Present students with critical methodologies and methods for the study of international politics. Introduce new spaces of political analysis such as the body, materiality, imagery and broaden the study to disciplines such as sociology, law, philosophy and anthropology. Develop students oral skills (through general discussion), team-work skills (through a seminar group work), written skills (through the assessed essay and poster), research skills (from the use and assessment of material from an array of sources), and critical and analytical skills.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
On completion of this unit successful students will be able to demonstrate: The ability to question predominant representations of political and historical events and identify and assess the importance of that which is excluded from political representations and identify reasons for their exclusion; The ability to understand and critically assess processes of commemoration and remembering the past; The ability to evaluate and critically assess the normative arguments surrounding the obscene in politics. The ability to apply the arguments and approaches studied to real and hypothetical cases. Oral, teamwork, written, and research skills.

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1: Introduction - what is and is NOT politics of obscenity? Week 2: Perverted curiosity - transgression and taboo, theoretical remarks Week 3: Ghosts, zombies, walking dead impurity, modernity, anxiety Week 4: Seductions of violence? The murderer, the terrorist, and the soldier Week 5: Seductions of voyeurism? Spaces of the abject Week 6: Law, exception and the excess Week 7: The display of violence: genocide, torture, rape Week 8: The display of death and the commemoration of horror Week 9: Conclusion: the seen, the unseen and the off-scene

COURSE ORGANISATION
Lectures The course will start with an introductory lecture in week one which will be followed up by eight two-hour interactive lectures and a wrap up session at the end. Lecture attendance is not compulsory, but failure to attend will mean that you get less benefit out of your tutorials and ultimately that you perform less well on the course. PowerPoint slides will be available to download from the course unit Blackboard site. Remember however that merely consulting the slides will not prepare you adequately for the successful completion of this course. Tutorials Each tutorial will begin with a 10min discussion of the readings allocated for the particular week; this will be followed by a 20minute presentation, and a 20minute discussion and seminar leading. The presentation and discussion will be a responsibility of the student(s) covering the selected topic. The presentations will begin in Week Two. Further instructions on the format of the presentation, guidance on what is expected from you and the individual selection of the topics will be done in Week One. Each student is expected to come to the tutorial fully prepared; you should be familiar with the lecture material that corresponds to the relevant seminar and read at least three readings from the allocated reading list. If you encounter problems or have questions on readings verbalise those problems into questions and ask them at the beginning of each seminar. Seminars are there to help you understand the discussed material. Adequate preparation is always the best way of getting a good mark. Attendance of tutorials is compulsory. If you know in advance that you will not be able to attend a particular tutorial make sure you email you tutor as soon as possible to explain your absence. Reading lists: each topic has an extensive reading list addressing the weekly topic from a variety of perspectives. You are expected to choose at least three readings in preparation for the seminar. As indicated, reading lists also overlap, thus for example readings listed for week 4 can be useful for discussions in week 6 or 7. Also, readings vary - those more theoretical and historical will help you understand those that are more empirical (in other words, they will help you identify the obscene elements of the examples discussed).

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Reading There is no text that covers the range of issues addressed in this course. However, there are a number of books which explore many of them, although they either lack the engagement with empirical detail of the course or the concern with the ethical. Bosteels, Bruno Marx and Freud in Latin America (London: Verso, 2012) Douglas, Mary Purity and Danger: an analysis of pollution and taboo (London: Routledge, 2002). Douglas, Mary Natural Symbols: Exploration in Cosmology (London: Routledge, 2003). Foucault, Michel Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison (London, Penguin: 1991). Klossowski, Pierre Sade My Neighbour (Quartet Books, 1992). Kristeva, Julia Powers of Horrors: An essay on abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). Minkkinen, Panu Sovereignty, Knowledge, Law (Abington: Glasshouse Press, 2009). Santner. Eric, The Royal Remains: the peoples two bodies and the endgames of sovereignty (University of Chicago Press, 2011). Scarry, Elaine, The body in pain: the making and the unmaking of the world (Oxford Paperbacks, 1988). Shapiro, Michael J. Studies in Trans-disciplinary Method: after the aesthetic turn (London: Routledge, 2012). Sontag, Susan Against Interpretation and Other Essays (Penguin Classics, 2009). Many of these books are also listed in the weekly reading lists.

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

ASSESSMENT
The course will be assessed in three ways: 1. 3500 word final essay (65%). 2. 1500 word review assignment (20%) 3. 20 min group seminar presentation and 20 min seminar leading (15%).

Essay Assessed essay of 3500 words (65%) due on Monday, January 13 2014. Your answers to the selected essay question will be expected to show an understanding of the wider literature and background material as well as content from the seminars but you are expected to rely predominantly on research material of their own. Evidence of originality, independent and critical thinking will be awarded. Marks will be awarded for intellectual insight and development, evidence of reading and research, questioning of the literature and case study material, and selfreflection. General guidelines: The essay must be typed and double-spaced. Essays must have a submission form attached to them. You must submit one copy of your essay. Essays must conform to departmental guidelines on footnotes and bibliography. Regulations state that There will be a penalty of 10 points for the first day and 10 points per day (including weekends) for any assessed essay submitted after the specified submission date, unless the course convenor grants the student an extension. Extensions will only be granted by the UG Office under exceptional circumstances. In the case of illness you must provide a medical certificate. If you have a problem which may affect your ability to submit your essay on time it is vital that see the course convenor immediately. Plagiarism is a serious offence. Students should consult the Universitys statement on plagiarism which can either be found in your programme handbooks or obtained from the Undergraduate Office (G0.001 Arthur Lewis). Essay questions will be announced, uploaded on the Blackboard and presented in Week 2 of the seminars.

Review Piece You must write a 1500 word review which will count for 20% of your mark. You have to chose one of the below listed political pieces and write a 1500 words review of it. Reviews are due on: November 11 2013, 2pm (via a link on BB9 link and a hard copy, UG office on ground floor). You will have to decide on a piece you wish to review by week 3 and stick to your choice. The review material is of a diverse nature; thus you will have to devote time to thinking about how to approach the review in the optimal way. Michael J. Shapiros book, Studies in Trans-disciplinary Method: after the aesthetic turn (London: Routledge, 2012) will be of great use to you. The purpose of this exercise is to make you aware of political implication of art broadly conceived; of ways in which politics informs and impacts art, artistic performance as well as other social media and internet resources; and to introduce you to other methodological approaches through which politics is or can be studied. Politics, as we will try to show, is omnipresent and a part of our every day much more than normally conceived.

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Pieces for review: Short story: Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony, in The Complete Short Stories (London: Vintage Classics, 2005): 140 167. [there are a number of editions and collections in which the story appears, and they are all ok]. Nanni Balestrini, The Unseen (London: Verso, 2011). The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, 2003. Francis Bacon, The screaming pope of Study after Velazquezs portrait of Pope Innocent X of 1953 *but you can choose any other portrait from Bacons collection of papal portraits+ --- Second Version of Triptych 1944 (1988); currently on display in Ashmolean Gallery, Oxford. Marlene Dumas, Wall Weeping (2009) and Wall Wailing (2009) Movie: Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, Anapurna Pictures, USA, 2012.

Novel: Comic book: Painting:

Performance Collective: Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) any current or past project by the group (website: http://www.nskstate.com/; also useful: Alexei Monroe, Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK (MIT Press, 2005) or Alexei Monroe, State of Emergence: The First NSK Citizens; Congress in Berlin (Plottner Verlag Gmbh, 2011). Performance: Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0, 1974 OR Breathing In/Breathing Out, 1978 [accessible on-line, artist personal website, youtube, or as re-enactments etc.] Voina, protest actionist art collective, performance A Dick Captured by the FSB, Liteiny Bridge, St Petersburg, 2010. Stanley Greene, Snipers life in Aleppo, Syria 2013 (image 00047972) see: http://archive.noorimages.com/series/preview.php?UURL=d4679f04fbd9a580ae3 d916acd24f7ec&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00047972 --- The rape of the lands, India 2012 (image 00045436) see: http://archive.noorimages.com/series/preview.php?UURL=f2c75f9fa2516e5 5accb6a583d60a008&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00045436 Tim Hetherington, Lawyer Francois Roux Cambodia, Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, see: http://www.magnumphotos.com/image/NYC119964.html ---Grenade bandolier, Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, http://www.magnumphotos.com/image/NYC116720.html see:

Actionist Art:

Photo:

(FYI currently there is an exhibition of Hetheringtons work at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool)

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Ana Mendieta, Untitled - Self-portrait with blood, 1973 (currently exhibited in Tate Modern, London see: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendietauntitled-self-portrait-with-blood-t13354) Landscape: Landscapes of myths and conspiracy: Area 51, US military site in Nevada Cultural and historical landscapes: Native American Reservations in the US, see a map: http://www.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/RESERV.PDF [choose a reservation site or a tribe and consider its cultural landscape and history of Native Americans]. Landscapes of conflict: Murals, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Landscape of memory: Vietnam War Memorial, Washington DC. Music: Pussy Riot, Russian feminist punk rock protest group, 2012 performance on the soleas of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow, and the subsequent music video entitled, Punk Prayer Mother of God, Chase Putin Away. Rammstein, Stripped (remake, in original Depeche Mode), review of a video [can be accessed on-line, e.g. http://raumfahrer.wordpress.com/rammstein/stripped/]

If you have difficulties obtaining any of the listed material or need further guidance please get in touch as soon as possible. As all chosen review pieces are of a very different nature your reviews will all have different structures and focus; however, consider the following points as your guidance: Explain the reasons for choosing this particular piece Introduce the historical, political, cinematic etc. (as appropriate) background of the piece Identify and discuss ideological, historical, political etc. implications of it Highlight what larger political or social issues arise in thinking through the chosen piece. Is your piece a response to any political or social situation? If so, what does it represent and what does it aim to achieve? If your piece is the embodiment of a particular policy or a reflection of it, explain what the policy is and how is your review piece situated in relation to it (id it critical of it or does it support its line of thinking)?

Be aware that you will need to read more widely about the piece in order to be able to write a comprehensive review and thus complete this exercise successfully. If there are any problems or something is unclear about the review you are very welcome to discuss it with either of us. It remains necessary to reference your review in the way in which you would do in an essay.

Tutorials 15 per cent of your course mark is based on your contribution to the tutorials. Your tutorial assessment mark will derive from two sources: a) your presentation and your role in leading one of the tutorials in the module and b) your contribution to the discussions throughout the module. In Week one you will be assigned to present on one of the topics listed below. Commonly there will be two of you presenting on one topic. Please keep in mind that we mark presentations as a whole,

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

thus if two or more students are presenting, you will all be given the same mark. Collaboration and communication between those presenting is necessary for a good mark. Marks are awarded for the quality of the presentation, eloquent presentation style, appropriate multi-media support, thoughtful participation in-group activities, evidence of preparation and reading, insightful comments and collegial behavior. Considering that open discussion is critical to learning, it matters that you learn to participate constructively in the early stages of your academic career. Please keep in mind that this is not a mark for attendance attendance is compulsory! Nor are high marks only awarded to those who talk the most. Tutorial participation will be assessed throughout the module. Tutorial topics the topics listed below are vary in scope, some are very broad others more specific and specialized. In your presentations you are invited to experiment with the topic and introduce different angles, interpretations and understandings. There is no one right answer to the topic; they are all invitations for a critical engagement, reflection and scholarly thought. Weekly readings should guide your preparations for the presentation. Tutorial topics: Week 2: Taboo and Transgression Week 3: Between Politics and Obscenity: Dawn of the Dead Week 4: The Soldier Tim Hetherington Week 5: Revolutionary Tourism in Tunisia Week 6: Guantanamo: torture team v poetry Week 7: Violence on display: Stanley Greene Week 8: Yad Vashem and the Politics of Remembering Week 9: Pornography enters High Street

Feedback The School of Social Sciences is committed to providing timely and appropriate feedback to students on their academic progress and achievement, thereby enabling students to reflect on their progress and plan their academic and skills development effectively. Students are reminded that feedback is necessarily responsive: only when a student has done a certain amount of work and approaches us with it at the appropriate form is it possible for us to feed back on the students work. The main forms of feedback on this course are in response to the portfolio and essay. We also draw your attention to the variety of generic forms of feedback available to you on this as on all SOSS courses. These include: meeting the lecturer/tutor during their office hours; emailing questions to the lecturer/tutor; asking questions from the lecturer (before and after lecture); presenting a question on the discussion board on Blackboard; and obtaining feedback from your peers during tutorials. Plagiarism Plagiarism is the theft or expropriation of someone elses work without proper acknowledgement, presenting the material as if it were ones own. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and the consequences are severe. Students should read the Guidelines for Students reproduced in the Politics Part 2 Guide and the Universitys policy on plagiarism

POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

(http://www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/policies/display/?id=102536&off=RegSec-%3EAcaReg%3ETLSO )

ALL MARKS REMAIN PROVISIONAL UNTIL THE JANUARY 2014 EXAMINATION BOARDS.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

TIMETABLE

Week Lecture Seminar:week of Lecture topic Seminar Topic Lecturer 1 23 Sep 30 Sep Introduction: What is and what Introduction - rules of AZ and EPG is NOT politics of obscenity. the game 2 30 Sep 7 Oct Perverted curiosity Taboo and transgression and taboo, AZ transgression theoretical remarks 3 7 Oct 14 Oct Ghosts, zombies and the walking Between politics and dead impurity, modernity and obscenity: Dawn of EPG anxiety the Death 4 14 Oct 21 Oct Seductions of violence? The The soldier Tim murderer, the terrorist, and the EPG Hetherington soldier 5 21 Oct 4 Nov Seductions of voyeurism? Spaces Revolutionary tourism of the abject AZ in Tunisia 6 7 8 28 Oct 4 Nov 11 Nov 11 Nov 18 Nov 18 Nov 25 Nov READING WEEK Law, exception and the excess Guantanamo: 'torture team' v. poems The display of violence: Violence on display genocide, torture, rape Stanley Greene The display of death and the Yad Vashem and commemoration of horror politics of remembering Conclusion: The seen, the unseen Pornography enters and the off-scene High Street

AZ AZ EPG AZ and EPG

25 Nov 2 Dec

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Week One: Introduction: What is and what is NOT politics of obscenity Readings Michel Foucault, Ethics: subjectivity and truth (New York: The New Press, 1997). Essays on On the government of the living and Preface to History of Sexuality, Volume II. --- A Preface to Transgression in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, Donald F. Bouchard ed., 1977. Can be found on-line or as part of other collections of Foucaults work. Lynee Hunt, The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500-1800 (New York: Zone Books, 1996). Linda Williams, Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess, Film Quarterly, vol. 44 (4), 1991: 2 13.

Knowing some Ancient Greek mythology and Antigone (Sophocles play) will also be of general use on this module.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

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Week Two: Perverted curiosity - transgression and taboo, theoretical remarks Readings Georges Bataille, Eroticism: Death and Sensuality (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986). Part one: Taboo and Transgression. Douglas, Mary Purity and Danger: an analysis of pollution and taboo (London: Routledge, 2002). [this is one of the key books, relevant for a number of lectures and tutorials thus consider reading it in full]. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo and Other Works, The Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIII (London: Vintage, The Hogarth Press, 2001). Totem and Taboo; essay can be found in many different collections. ---- Beyond Pleasure principle and Other Writings (London: Penguin Books, 2003). Essay Beyond the Pleasure principle. ---- The Interpretation of Dreams (New York: Avon Books). See essay: 'Chapter V, The Material and Sources of Dreams'. Michel Foucault, Ethics: subjectivity and truth (New York: The New Press, 1997). Essays on Sexual Choice, Sexual Act, The Social Triumph of the Sexual Will, Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity and Sexuality of Solitude. Can be found on-line or as part of other collections of Foucaults work. ---- The Will to Knowledge: the history of sexuality: 1 (London: Penguin, 1998). Part Four: The Deployment of Sexuality with essays on Objective, Method, Domain, and Periodization. Pierre Legendre, The Masters of Law: A study of dogmatic function, in A Legendre Reader, Peter Goodrich, ed (Basingstoke, London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1997): 98133. Claude Levi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning (London: Routledge, 2001). Bronislaw Malinowski, Sex and Regression in Savage Society (1927). Look at Part 2: 'The mirror of tradition' and Part 4: 'Instinct and culture'. Available: http://archive.org/details/sexrepressionins00mali David Wall, 'Transgression, Excess and the Violence of Looking in the Art of Kara Walker', Oxford Art Journal, vol 33 (2), (2010): 279 - 299. For further sociology/anthropology focused readings see also: Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Martino Fine Books, 2012). There are many different editions and publications of the same work. Sigmund Freud, Civilisation and Its Discontent (London: Penguin, 2004). There are many different editions and publications of the same work.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Week Three: Ghosts, zombies and the walking dead Impurity, Modernity and Anxiety Readings Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage, 1992). Philip Brophy, Horrality, The textuality of Contemporary Horror Films, Screen, vol. 27(1), 1986: 2-13 Noel Carroll, Nightmare and the Horror Film: The Symbolic Biology of Fantastic Beings, Film Quarterly, vol. 34(3), 1981:16-25 Richard, Devetak, The Gothic Scene of International Relations: Ghosts, Monsters, Terror and the Sublime after September 11, Review of International Studies, vol. 31, 2005: 621-643 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger. An analysis of concept of pollution and taboo (London: Routledge, 2002). Daniel W. Drezner, Theories of International Politics and Zombies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990). ---- Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Oxford: Polity Press, 1994). Julia Kristeva, The Power of Horror: An Essay in Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). Ruth Mayer, Virus Discourse: The Rhetoric of Threat and Terrorism in the Biothriller, Cultural Critique, vol. 66 (2007): 1-20. Corey Robin, Fear The History of a Political Idea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). John Allen Stevenson, A Vampire in the Mirror: the sexuality of Dracula, PMLA, vol. 103 (2), 1988: 139 149.

Also see the photography of Tim Hetherington.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

School of Social Sciences

Week Four: Seductions of violence? The murderer, the terrorist and the soldier Readings Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering ( Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001). Christopher Coker, Warrior Ethos: Military Culture and the War on Terror (London: Routledge, 2007). Allan Feldman, Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). Jeff Ferrell, Culture, Crime and Cultural Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 3 (1995): 2542 Dave Grossman, On Killing. The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Back Bay Books, 1995). Mark S. Hamm, Apocalyptic violence. The Seduction of Terrorist Subcultures, Theoretical Criminology, 8(3), 2004: 323-339 Rune Henriksen, Warriors in combat what makes people actively fight in combat?, Journal of Strategic Studies, 30(2), 2007: 187-223. Jack Katz, Seductions of Crime - A chilling exploration of the criminal mindfrom juvenile delinquency to cold-blooded murder (New York: Basic Books, 1988). Charlotte Linde, Life Stories: Creation of Coherence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Stephen Lyng, Edgework: A Social Psychological Analysis of Voluntary Risk Taking, American Journal of Sociology, 95(4), 1990: 85186 Carol Mason, Killing For Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). Theodore Nadelson, Trained to Kill: Soldiers at War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Carolyn Nordstrom, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the TwentyFirst Century, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). Mike Presdee, Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime (London: Routledge, 2000). Eviatar Zerubavel, Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

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Week Five: Seductions of voyeurism? Spaces of the abject Readings Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: the witness and the archive (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2008). Jean Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art (New York: Semiotext(e), (2005): 25 35; 43 87; 181 211. ----- Simulacra and Simulation. Accessible: https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/baudrillardsimulacra_and_simulation.pdf This contribution has a number of essay relevant to different topics, thus consult the reading for topic you see appropriate. Dorina Maria Buda and Alison Jane McIntosh, Dark tourism and voyeurism: tourist arrest for spying in Iran, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research vol 7 (3) 2013: 214 226. Erik H. Cohen. Educational dark tourism at an in populo site: the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, Annals of Tourism Research Vol 38 (1): 193 209. Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Womens Lives in (London: University of California Press, 2000). Essay on: The Prostitute, the Colonel and the Nationalist. Wu Hung, Tiananmen Square: A Political History of Monuments, Representations 35 (2001): 84117. J. John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, Interpretation of the Unimaginable: the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. and Dark Tourism, Journal of Travel Research, vol. 38 (1), 1999: 46 50. Joane Nagel, Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Essay on: Sex and War: Fighting Men, Comfort Women and the Military-Sexual Complex. Tom Phillips, Weary of war but ready for action: American soldiers set their sight on delights if Rio, The Guardian, January 18 2007. Accessible: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/18/usa.brazil Jacques Rancire, The Emancipated Spectator (New York: Verso, 2009). Essays on: The intolerable Image and The Pensive Image. Michael J. Shapiro, Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). ----Cinematic Geopolitics (New York: Routledge, 2009). Philip Stone and Richard Sharpley, Consuming dark tourism: a thanatological perspective, vol. 35 (2), 2008: 574 595. Carolyn Strange and Michael Kempa, Shades of dark tourism: Alcatraz and Robben Island, Annals of Tourism Research, vol 30 (2), 2003: 386 405.

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Elspeth Van Veeren, Captured by the camera's eye: Guantnamo and the shifting frame of the Global War on Terror, Review of International Studies, vol 37 (4), 2011: 1721 1749. Tony Walter, Dark Tourism: mediating between the dead and the living. In: R. Sharpley and P. Stone, eds. The Darker Side of Travel: the theory and practice of dark tourism, (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2009). Available: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/18504/1/Walter_2009_Dark_Tourism.pdf Paul Williams, Memorial museums: the global rush to commemorate atrocities (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2008). Nicholas A. Wise, Post-war tourism and the imaginative geographies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, European Journal of Tourism Research Vol. 4 (1), 2011: 5 24.

Some of the readings on issues of dark tourism can also be useful for discussions in weeks 7 and 8.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity Week Six: Law, exception and the excess Readings

School of Social Sciences

Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Claudia Aradau, Law Transformed: Guantnamo and the other exception, Third World Quarterly, 28 no. 3 (2007): 489501. Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism. Le Monde, September 2001, Accessible: http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/the-spirit-of-terrorism/ Anthony Burke, Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and Reason, Theory and Event, Vol 10 (2), 2007. Available: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/toc/tae10.2.html Mark Falkoff, Poems from Guantnamo: A Detainee Speak (Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2007). Michel Foucault, I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister and my brother A case of parricide in the 19th Century (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1982). Especially The Dossier, The Animal, the Madman, and Death and Tales of Murder. --- Ethics: subjectivity and truth (New York: The New Press, 1997). Essays on Psychiatric Power and The Abnormal. They can be accessed on line pr find as part of other collections of Foucaults work. Major David J.R. Frakt, Closing Argument at Guantnamo: The Torture of Mohammed Jawad, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 21, no.1 : 123. Derek Gregory, The Black Flag: Guantnamo Bay and the Space of Exception, Geografiska Annaler B 88, no.4 (2006): 40527. Claudio Minca, The Return of the Camp, Progress in Human Geography 29, no.4 (2005): 40512. Stewart Motha, Guantnamo Bay, Abandoned Being and the Constitution of Jurisdiction, in Jurisprudence of Jurisdiction, Shaun McVeigh ed. (London: UCL Press, 2006): 6383. Jason Ralph, The laws of war and the state of American exception, Review of International Studies 35 no. 3 (2009): 63149. Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Rumsfelds Memo and the Betrayal of American Values (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: the making and unmaking of the world (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Chapter 1: The Structure of Torture and Chapter 2: The Structure of War. For further theoretical and historical studies in the concepts of psychiatric power and the abnormal see: Michel Foucault, Abnormal - Lecture at the Collge de France, 1974 1975 (New York: Picador, 1999).

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity

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----- Psychiatric Power - Lecture at the Collge de France, 1973 1974 (New York: Picador, 2003). This material can also be useful for discussions in week 7.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity Week Seven: The display of violence: genocide, torture, rape Readings

School of Social Sciences

Jean Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art (New York: Semiotext(e), 2005): 133 177. Kevin Blackburn, Reminiscence and war trauma: recalling the Japanese occupation of Singapore, 1942 1945, Oral History, Vol 33 (2), 2005: 91 98. Simone M. Caron, Birth Control and the Black Communities in the 190s: genocide or power politics?, Journal of Social History, Vol 31 3), 1998: 545 569. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: an analysis of pollution and taboo (London: Routledge, 2002). Jonathan Gottschall, Exploring Wartime Rape, The Journal of Sex Research, Vol 41(2), 2004:129-36. Stefano Harney and Randy Martin, Mode of excess: Bataille, Criminality and the War on Terror, Theory and Event, Vol 10 (2), 2007. Available: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v010/10.2harney.html Alexander Laban Hinton, Why do you kill: The Cambodian genocide and the dark side of face and honor, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol 57 (1), 1998: 93 122. Alison Howell, Victims or Madmen? The Diagnostic Competition over Terrorist Detainees in Guantnamo Bay, International Political Sociology 1, no.1 (2007): 2947. Mark A. Largent, The Greatest Curse of the Race: eugenic sterilization in Oregon, 1909 1983, Oregin History Quarterly, vol 103 (2), 2002: 188 209. Joane Nagel, Ethnicity and Sexuality, Annual Review of Sociology, vol 26, 2000: 107 133. Jacques Rancire, The Emancipated Spectator (New York: Verso, 2009). Essays on: The intolerable Image and The Pensive Image. Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (London: Penguin, 2003). Suzanne Tessler, Compulsory Sterilization Practices, Frontiers: a journal of women studies, vol 1 (2), 1976: 52 66. Mary Ann Ttreault, The Sexual Politics of Abu Ghraib: Hegemony, spectacle and the global war on terror, NWSA Journal, Vol 18(3), 2006: 33 50. Bonnie Thomas, Identity at the crossroads: an exploration of French Caribbean gender identity, in Carribean Studies, Vol 32 (2): 45 62. Cornelie Usborne, Social body, Racial Body, Womens Body. Discourses, Policies, Practices from Wilhelmine to Nazi Germany 1912 1945, Historical Research, vol 36 (2) 2011: 140 161. Elisabeth Weber, Literary Justice? Poems from Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp, Comparative Literature Studies, vol 48 (3) 2011: 417 434. Also see the work of Stanley Greene and consider literature listed under week 6.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity Week Eight: The display of death and the commemoration of horror Readings

School of Social Sciences

T.G Ashplant, Graham Dawson & Michael Roper, eds. The Politics of war memory and commemoration (London: Routledge, 2000). Marie Breen-Smyth, Hierarchies of Pain and Responsibility: Victims and War by Other Means in Northern Ireland, Tripodos, vol. 25, 2009: 27-40 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). John R. Gillis, ed. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Brian Graham, & Yvonne Whelan, The legacies of the dead: commemorating the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Environment and Planning D, vol. 25(3), 2005: 476495. Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). Herwig, Holger & Michael Keren, eds. War memory and popular culture: essays on modes of remembrance and commemoration (London: McFarland & Co Inc, 2009). Laleh Khalili, Heroes and martyrs of Palestine: The politics of national commemoration, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Anatoly M. Khazanov, Whom to Mourn and Whom to Forget? (Re)constructing Collective Memory in Contemporary Russia, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, vol. 9(2-3, 2008): 293-310. Mara Kozelsky, Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Philip Kohl Philip, eds. Selective remembrances; archaeology in the construction, commemoration and consecration of national pasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). Shaul Krakover, The Holocaust Remembrance Site of Yad Vashem Welcomes Visitors, International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, vol. 11(4), 2002: 359362.

Also consider readings listed for weeks 5 and 6.

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POLI32501 Politics of Obscenity Week Nine: Conclusion: The seen, the unseen and the off-scene Readings for further study and help in essay writings

School of Social Sciences

Georges Bataille, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927 1939 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985). See the following essays: Sacrifices and The Sorcerers Apprentice. *also accessible on line in different collections+ Jean Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art (New York: Semiotext(e),( 2005): 89 129. Pierre Legendre, Introduction to the Theory of the Image: Narcissus and the Other in the Mirror, Law and Critique, Vol, VIII, no. 1 (1997): 3 35. Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality I, II and III (London: Penguin, 1998). [this is one of the key studies in the history of sexuality, consisting of three volumes: Vol I: The Will to Knowledge; Vol II: The Use of Pleasure; Vol III: The Care of the Self]. Elisabeth Ladenson, Dirt for Art's Sake: books on trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). Jacques Rancire, The Emancipated Spectator (New York: Verso, 2009). Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays (Penguin Classics, 2009). Mathieu Trachman, Le travail pornographique: Enqute sur la production de fantasmes (Paris : Le Dcouverte, 2013). Slavoj Zizek, Violence: six sideways reflections (London: Profile Books, 2009).

For political significance of Marquis de Sades work see for example: Maurice Blanchot, Sade. This essay can be found in a number of different collections and on-line Pierre Klossowski, Sade My Neighbour (Quartet Books, 1992).

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