Global Corpse Politics - The Obscenity Taboo

What makes a photograph of a dead body obscene? Auchter's genealogy of obscenity argues that this process is highly political.

List of contents

1. Visualizing corpse politics; 2. Horrifically graphic: the obscene corpse; 3. The visual politics of ISIS beheadings; 4. Dead terrorists and dead dictators; 5. Proof of death: evidence and atrocity; 6. Displaying the dead body: Some conclusions.

About the author

Jessica Auchter's research focuses on visual politics and culture. She is author of The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations (2014), and dozens of academic articles and edited volume chapters. She is the winner of the Fred Hartmann paper award from the International Studies Association.

Summary

What makes a photograph of a dead body obscene? Auchter offers a genealogy of obscenity that argues this process is highly political. She explores how and why some images are framed as ethically necessary to view, while others are displayed as spectacles, and others deemed too graphic for viewing.

Additional text

'What can the dead tell us about global politics? In this thoughtful and considerate book, Jessica Auchter refuses to see dead bodies as the grisly remnants of global politics. Instead, she explains how corpses work to constitute global politics, focusing particular attention on how dead bodies have been used to both re-humanise and de-humanise the people that populate international landscape. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in images of death that circulate in the media because it provides the theoretical tools we need to understand how death is seen, whose deaths are seen, and what these death reveal about the living world we inhabit.' Thomas Gregory, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland

Product details

• Authors: Jessica Auchter, Jessica (University of Tennessee Auchter, Auchter Jessica
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.11.2021
• EAN: 9781316511657
• ISBN: 978-1-316-51165-7
• No. of pages: 270
• Series: Cambridge Studies in International Relations
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General, LAW / International, LAW / Public, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / Media & Communications, International Relations, Politics & government, Politics and government, Media, Information & Communication Industries, International Organisations & Institutions