The War Body on Screen

The bodies of the dead or the soon to be dead litter the media landscape and they frame the representation of war, terror and conflict in the modern age. After 9/11, a global open wound has emerged that bleeds itself into the articulating, discursive fabric of everyday life. This is the age of the war body on screen. What are the meanings carried and conveyed by these bodies? What is the impact of new media and information technologies on the construction and transmission of war bodies?

A multidisciplinary approach is essential in order to answer these questions and capture and interpret the complexity of the war body on screen in its many manifestations. In The War Body on Screen, contributors utilize textual analysis, psychoanalysis, post-colonial theory, comparative analysis, narrative theory, discourse analysis, representation and identity as their theoretical guideposts, defining war in hard and soft terms to not only include the literal manifestations of state-sanctioned violence and "terrorist" insurgency, but the discursive and metaphoric forms of war-war as an expression of power and subjugation, and war as an interior and interpersonal mechanism that writes identities and scripts differences on the body.

The discussion of the war body on screen is best served by drawing upon multiple and diverging view points, differing academic backgrounds and methodological approaches. A multi-disciplinary approach is essential in order to capture and interpret the complexity of the war body on screen and its many manifestations. In this collection, contributors utilize textual analysis, psychoanalysis, post-colonialism, comparative analysis, narrative theory, discourse analysis, representation and identity as their theoretical footprints. Analysis of the impact of new media and information technologies on the construction and transmission of war bodies is also been addressed.

The War Body on Screen has a highly original structure, with themed sections organized around 'the body of the soldier'; 'the body of the terrorist'; and 'the body of the hostage'.

Karen Randell is a Principal Lecturer in Film at Southampton Solent University, UK where she is Programme Leader for Film and Television. She teaches contemporary cinema and film history and her research interests include: war genre, trauma, masculinity and early cinema. She is published on trauma in film in Art in the Age of Terrorism (London: Holberton Publication: 2005) and in SCREEN. She is co-editor (with Sean Redmond) of The War Body on Screen (Continuum, NY: 2008) and Screen Methods: Comparative Readings in Film Studies (Wallflower Press: 2005) with Jacqueline Furby.

Sean Redmond is Associate Professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Culture of Blood, and editor of Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader.