Navigating War, Dissent and Empathy in Arab/U.S Relations: Seeing Our Others in Darkened Spaces

Description

This book focuses on American political discourse connected to war, dissent, and empathy. Through interdisciplinary methods of history, politics and media studies, the book examines ways in which American self-identity alters as a consequence of media portrayal of human suffering and of its existential others. It compares representations of the Iraq wars to earlier precedents and looks at the work of American activists, assessing how narratives and images of human suffering in new media iconography generate empathic attitudes towards others. This comparative, multimodal study helps to explain shifting self-identities within the U.S, and relationally through the representation of the Arab other presenting an original and historicised contribution to the media-war field of academic and public debate. The book underscores empathy as a vibrant category of analysis that expands how we think about West-Arab relations, revealing how understanding the cultural aspects of this conflictual interrelationship needs to be broadened.   Acknowledgements What is This Book About? Contents About the Author Part I Empathy and the Finding of Empathic Spaces 1 Empathy and the Search for the Other Opening Spaces of Empathy The Need to Self-Imagine The Challenge of Empathy Bridging Our Gaps References 2 Landscaping ‘Otherness and Challenging Frames of “Nothingness” in Contemporary Palestine’ Symbolism of Space The People and the Olive: The Story of the Run Across Palestine Beginnings and Ends—Location and Symbolic Intent Conclusion References 3 Distance as Othering: US Images of Conflict Inside and Outside the Homeland News Framing and Symbolic Codes Virginia Tech and Visual Motifs of Grieving Activating a Collectivism Frame for Others Poetry of Pain and Pathos Remembering Iraqis in American Photos Seeing the Anonymous Figure Challenging Dominant Media Frames: Considering Empathic Responses Conclusion References Part II The War in Iraq and the Empathic Spaces of Elsewhere 4 The Mahmudiyah Killings and the Framing of Abeer Obscuring Frames with Images of Chaos Mahmudiyah and the Opening and Closing of Frames The Framing Between a Past and Present Empathy and the Creating of ‘Imagined’ Frames Conclusion References 5 Empathy Behind and Beyond the Cage Frantz Fanon and the Mental Effects of Torture Symbolic Codes and Spaces in Camp X-Ray From the Cage to Camp X-Ray Conclusion References 6 Performance and Pathos: Symbolism of Suffering in the Mourning of Iraqi ‘Mothers’ Images of Subordinated Others Conclusion Bibliography Conclusion Looking Ahead References