Location
Stewart Center 313
Session Number
Session 02: APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING TERRORISM
Start Date
8-9-2011 1:00 PM
End Date
8-9-2011 2:30 PM
Abstract
The suicide bomber lies outside the contingencies of religion and the promise of sex with 72 virgins. Instead, her desire lies squarely in the quest for inclusion in the field of vision and to count as a human being. This paper proposes an alternative critical discourse to the question of identity-based suffering and culpability. It aims to raise doubts about certain established notions concerning historical trauma that are thought to be singular, unrepeatable, and the result of fixed dichotomies. Instead, I wish to call for a rejection of the notion of competitive suffering and of culpability as limited to the group perpetrating the last act of violence.
The Martyr’s Vision: Why the Suicide Bomber’s Eye Is Cast Not to the Sky . . . but to the Other
Stewart Center 313
The suicide bomber lies outside the contingencies of religion and the promise of sex with 72 virgins. Instead, her desire lies squarely in the quest for inclusion in the field of vision and to count as a human being. This paper proposes an alternative critical discourse to the question of identity-based suffering and culpability. It aims to raise doubts about certain established notions concerning historical trauma that are thought to be singular, unrepeatable, and the result of fixed dichotomies. Instead, I wish to call for a rejection of the notion of competitive suffering and of culpability as limited to the group perpetrating the last act of violence.
Comments
Session II: APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING TERRORISM Organizers: Elena Coda and Ben Lawton