The objective of this book was to use Edward Said's theory Orientalism in order to increase our understanding of such how and why the United States goes to war in the manner in which it has and does. I examined all cases of United States foreign policies of overt violence, bounded by and including, Vietnam (1964-1969) and Iraq (2003-2007). What this research showed was quite contrary to Orientalism’s expectations (as well as my own). Analyzing the discursive record for the “trigger words” ...

Political Graffiti and Global Human Rights: Take Another Look examines the role of political graffiti in the public spaces of Northern Ireland and occupied Palestine, highlighting the ways in which oppressed communities utilize this form of expression to convey resistance, foster community support, preserve the memory of armed struggle, and assert their presence. By drawing a comparative analysis between Northern Ireland and Palestine, Philip Hopper and Evan Renfro argue that while the pea...

In these troubled times, even the most pessimistic diagnosis of our future ends with an uplifting hint that things might not be as bad as all that, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.Yet, argues Slavoj Žižek, it is only when we have admitted to ourselves that our situation is completely hopeless - that the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact the headlight of a train approaching us from the opposite direction - that fundamental change can be brought about.Sur...

Today, hundreds of thousands of people, desperate to escape war, violence and poverty, are crossing the Mediterranean to seek refuge in Europe. Our response from our protected European standpoint, argues Slavoj Zizek, offers two versions of ideological blackmail: either we open our doors as widely as possible; or we try to pull up the drawbridge. Both solutions are bad, states Zizek. They merely prolong the problem, rather than tackling it.The refugee crisis also presents an opport...

Coopted by military operations, humanitarianism has never been neutral. Rather than welcoming refugees, host countries assess the relative risks of taking them in versus turning them away, using a risk-benefit analysis that often reduces refugees to collateral damage in proxy wars fought in the war on terrorism. Carceral Humanitarianism testifies that humanitarian aid and human rights discourse are always political and partisan.Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of...

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies, Gender and the Violence(s) of War and Armed Conflict delves into visual as well as text-based materials to unpack gender-based violence(s) perpetrated and experienced by both genders within and beyond the conflict zone.Considering examples of old and new wars ranging from the Holoca...

This Handbook presents a transnational and interdisciplinary study of refugee narratives, broadly defined. Interrogating who can be considered a refugee and what constitutes a narrative, the thirty-eight chapters included in this collection encompass a range of forcibly displaced subjects, a mix of geographical and historical contexts, and a variety of storytelling modalities. Analyzing novels, poetry, memoirs, comics, films, photography, music, social media, data, graffiti, lette...

This revised and updated second edition features over twenty new chapters and offers a wide-ranging collection of cutting-edge essays from leading scholars in the field of Security Studies.The field of Security Studies has undergone significant change during the past 20 years, and is now one of the most dynamic sub-disciplines within International Relations. This second edition has been significantly updated to address contemporary and emerging security threats with chapters on org...

Women across the globe are being dramatically affected by war as currently waged by the USA. But there has been little public space for dialogue about the complex relationship between feminism, women, and war.The editors of Feminism and War have brought together a diverse set of leading theorists and activists who examine the questions raised by ongoing American military initiatives, such as:What are the implications of an imperial nation/state laying claim to women's liber...

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the unity and authority of the secularist Turkish state were challenged by the rise of political Islam and Kurdish separatism on the one hand and by the increasing demands of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank on the other. While the Turkish government had long limited Islam—the religion of the overwhelming majority of its citizens—to the private sphere, it burst into the public arena in the late 1990s, becoming...

Forging the World brings together leading scholars in International Relations (IR) and Communication Studies to investigate how, when, and why strategic narratives shape the structure, politics, and policies of the global system. Put simply, strategic narratives are tools that political actors employ to promote their interests, values, and aspirations for the international order by managing expectations and altering the discursive environment. These narratives define “who we are” ...

Every century has witnessed the birth of a few world-transcending intellectuals as well as talented emerging scholars. Noam Chomsky and Pierre W. Orelus are no exception. Using dialogues exchanged over the course of nine years, combined with heartfelt critical essays, Chomsky and Orelus analytically examine social justice issues, such as unbalanced relationships between dominant and subjugated languages, democratic schooling, neoliberalism, colonization, and the harmful effect of Western g...