Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Naming Violence: A Critical Theory of Genocide, Torture, and Terrorism

Naming Violence: A Critical Theory of Genocide, Torture, and Terrorism

Thaler, Mathias

Hardcover

Series: New Directions in Critical Theory, Book 52

PhilosophyGeneral Political ScienceInternational Relations

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0231188145
ISBN13: 9780231188142
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Sep 11 2018
Pages: 248
Weight: 1.10
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.10
Language: English

Much is at stake when we choose a word for a form of violence: whether a conflict is labeled civil war or genocide, whether we refer to enhanced interrogation techniques or to torture, whether a person is called a terrorist or a patriot. Do these decisions reflect the rigorous application of commonly accepted criteria, or are they determined by power structures and partisanship? How is the language we use for violence entangled with the fight against it?

In Naming Violence, Mathias Thaler articulates a novel perspective on the study of violence that demonstrates why the imagination matters for political theory. His analysis of the politics of naming charts a middle ground between moralism and realism, arguing that political theory ought to question whether our existing vocabulary enables us to properly identify, understand, and respond to violence. He explores how narrative art, thought experiments, and historical events can challenge and enlarge our existing ways of thinking about violence. Through storytelling, hypothetical situations, and genealogies, the imagination can help us see when definitions of violence need to be revisited by shedding new light on prevalent norms and uncovering the contingent history of ostensibly self-evident beliefs. Naming Violence demonstrates the importance of political theory to debates about violence across a number of different disciplines from film studies to history.

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