Citation

Lezra E. Rev. Educ. Pedagog. Cult. Stud. 2014; 36(5): 343-371.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10714413.2014.958374

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An act of atrocity is an act of violence that is perceived to exceed the boundaries of what a legitimate punitive measure--either against an individual or a collective group of people-would be for retribution for the unjust infliction of an injury. Atrocities are enacted, experienced, witnessed, and translated. They take multiple forms. What makes an act of violence an act of atrocity (rather than a pain-ridden event such as a death by accident, sudden disease, or other uncontrollable natural events) is not only the element of deliberation behind it, but also the affective horror and the poetics of disavowal that the act generates in its documentation and dissemination. Such acts do not disappear with mourning or grief, but exceed any sort of narrative of closure or containment. At the core of what Jameson has called the "hurts of history," these acts circulate through time space and across cultures, from past to present, from distant imagined objects of study onto the screens, whiteboards, and transparencies of classrooms. The study of torture, atrocity, and other forms of calculated violence is necessary to disrupt the senseless and yet somehow timeless myths of modernity and enlightened subjectivity that infuse classrooms, it demands that we take a closer look. Some of the questions the author points toward in this article include: (1) How does the study of historical terror and torture throw light upon the political and cultural dynamics of spectatorship, witnessing, and complicity that still function to support global violence and terror today? (2) How do educators bring these pressing issues ethically and empathetically into the classroom? The writers and artists whose representations are studied here all have witnessed and meticulously recorded horrific instances of human atrocity. Is the one who witnesses and records the violence simply a medium through which the violence is remembered, or are they an agent reproducing the violence?

Language: en