The Figure of the Terrorist in Literature and Visual Culture
Edited by Maria Flood, Michael C. Frank
Contains thirteen original essays and an expansive introduction, including contributions by some of the foremost scholars in the field
- Goes beyond the US-centrism of post-9/11 discourse and covers a broad geographical scope, including India, Sri Lanka, Burma, the UK, France, and Germany
- Offers up-to-date discussions of key films and texts, as well as pioneering analyses of works that have been largely overlooked in scholarship
- Brings together research from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including literary criticism, film and television studies, cultural anthropology, critical terrorism studies, postcolonial studies, and gender studies
- You can view an abstract for each chapter by clicking on the chapter title in the Table of Contents
The contemporary preoccupation with terrorism is marked by a curious paradox: whereas the topic has been ubiquitous in public discourse since the late twentieth century, the voices of terrorists themselves are usually silenced. Is the terrorist “the quintessential proscribed or tabooed figure of our times”, as cultural anthropologists Joseba Zulaika and William A. Douglass have suggested? The present volume is the first to approach the tabooing of terrorists from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective.
Covering a broad geographical scope, it explores how different media forms (such as novels, fiction and non-fiction films, or comic books) frame and make sense of the figure of the terrorist: do they reinforce the terrorism taboo, or do they find ways of circumventing it? Each contribution asks how factors such as ideological agenda, religious identity, ethnicity, and gender impact the way the perpetrators of political violence are conceived in different historical moments and cultural contexts.
Introduction: The Figure of the Terrorist in Literature and Visual Culture - Maria Flood and Michael C. Frank
Historicising the Figure of the Terrorist: Cross-Media Perspectives
The Psychology of Post-War Revolutionary Terrorism in Muriel Spark’s The Only Problem and Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist - Beatriz Lopez
Sympathy for the Devil? The Changing Face of the IRA in American Superhero Comic - Shane Walshe
Terrorists and Hooligans: Re-politicising a De-politicised Figure in Contemporary Representations of British Football Culture - Cyprian Piskurek
Screening Railway Terrorists: Light Modernity, Invisible Threats, and the Aesthetics of Concealment in The 15:17 to Paris and Bodyguard - Johannes Riquet
‘Nothing Terroristic About Him’: The Figure of the Terrorist in Karan Mahajan’s The Association of Small Bombs - Peter C. Herman
Gender, Identity, and Terrorism
Militancy, Maternity, and Masquerade in Santosh Sivan’s The Terrorist - Rajeswari Mohan
The Female Counter-Strike: Terrorising Patriarchy in Hindi Cinema - Harald Pittel
Contrasting Terrorist Figures: Far-Right Extremists and Jihadists in Contemporary French Cinema - Sarah Davison
‘I Was a Big Girl. I Could Pack My Bags and Leave’: ISIS and Female Emancipation in Tabish Khair’s Just Another Jihadi Jane - Zaynab Seedat
Intimate Enemies: Feeling for the Terrorist?
Circumventing the Condemnation Imperative: The Figure of the Female Suicide Bomber in Akin and El Akkad - Tim Gauthier
Discomfort and Documentary: The Figure of the White Extremist in Deeyah Khan’s White Right - Maria Flood
Intimate Conflicts: Rebels, Heroes, and Disfigured Terrorists in Burmese Anglophone Literature - Pavan Kumar Malreddy
Afterword - Richard Jackson
Required reading for anyone concerned with the political uses and abuses of the fictionalized Terrorist figure. The collection revisits the notion of the terrorism taboo within literature and cinema to tackle difficult topics like the ambiguity of fiction in constituting and dissolving terrorism.
This collection makes an exciting intervention that expands the frame of critical terrorism studies to include figures such as football hooligans and white supremacists, as well as offering new comparative readings of well-established terrorist tropes and representations in contemporary global literary and visual culture.
These essays challenge the “terrorism taboo,” in which the figure of the terrorist is deprived of “political subjectivity,” through nuanced investigations of this figure—represented in fiction, film, television, and comics—that restore complexity. By complicating and rehistoricizing the figure of the terrorist, these authors ultimately challenge readers to consider how or if empathy—a “difficult empathy”—might be employed.
An exceptional anthology [...] presents a critical and overdue intervention in the landscape of terrorism discourse, testing and dismantling the prevalent terrorism mythography.
- Abstract 2 - The Psychology of Post-War Revolutionary Terrorism in Muriel Spark’s The Only Problem and Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist
- Abstract 3 - Sympathy for the Devil? The Changing Face of the IRA in American Superhero Comics
- Abstract 4 - Terrorists and Hooligans: Re-politicising a De-politicised Figure in Contemporary Representations of British Football Culture
- Abstract 5 - Screening Railway Terrorists: Light Modernity, Invisible Threats, and the Aesthetics of Concealment in The 15:17 to Paris and Bodyguard
- Abstract 6 - ‘Nothing Terroristic About Him’: The Figure of the Terrorist in Karan Mahajan’s The Association of Small Bombs
- Abstract 7 - Militancy, Maternity, and Masquerade in Santosh Sivan’s The Terrorist
- Abstract 8 - The Female Counter-Strike in Hindi Cinema
- Abstract 9 - Contrasting Terrorist Figures: Far-Right Extremists and Jihadists in Contemporary French Cinema
- Abstract 10 - ‘I Was a Big Girl. I Could Pack My Bags and Leave’: ISIS and Female Emancipation in Tabish Khair’s Just Another Jihadi Jane
- Abstract 11 - Circumventing the Condemnation Imperative: The Figure of the Female Suicide Bomber in Akin and El Akkad
- Abstract 12 - Discomfort and Documentary: The Figure of the White Extremist in Deeyah Khan’s White Right
- Abstract 13 - Intimate Conflicts: Rebels, Heroes, and Disfigured Terrorists in Burmese Anglophone Literature
