Disappearing War

'From mainstream news coverage of conflict to the use of close-ups in The Master, this searching edited collection explores the dialectic between the seen and the unseen in the contemporary war film. The contributors tackle the question of whether the myriad changes to war and the representation of war - via embedded reporting, drones, virtual reality and so on - constitute a deep ideological erasure. Their insights are intellectually and ethically illuminating and advance our understanding of the cultural imagination of war in important ways.'Guy Westwell, QMULThe battles fought in the name of the 'war on terror' have re-ignited questions about the changing nature and experience of war. For those geographically distant from these conflict zones, often the only means of knowing and understanding war is through the media. But what is missing from the mediated experience of war that film, television and the internet provide? What are the intentional and unintentional processes of erasure that shape this experience, and what are their consequences?Cinema is a key site for such questions. Examining a range of films that have provoked debate, from award-winning features such as Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper, to documentaries like Kill List and Dirty Wars, alongside the work of visual artists like Harun Farocki and Omer Fast, this book maps the practices of erasure that have marked the cultural representation of military interventions connected to the 'war on terror'. In doing so, this interdisciplinary collection represents an important intervention into contemporary debates about the intersection of war and politics, cinema and the media.Christina Hellmich is Associate Professor in IR & Middle East Studies and Lisa Purse is Associate Professor of Film in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television, both at the University of Reading.Cover image: Drone Shadow 007: The Lavender Hill Drone, installed by James Bridle and Grace Jones. Photograph © James Bridle.Cover design:[EUP logo]edinburghuniversitypress.comISBN 978-1-4744-1656-6Barcode