Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Symbolic Violence As Subtle Virulence: The Philosophy Of Terrorism, Jonathan Beever

Re-visioning Terrorism

Jean Baudrillard’s semiotic analysis of violence leads us to understand the form of violence as three-fold: aggressive, historical, and semiotically virulent. Violence of the third form is the violence endemic to terrorism. If violence has been typically understood as of the first two types, terrorism should be understood as the virulence of simulacra. The conflation of these types of violence explains the failure of militaristic responses to terrorism. This paper will explore Baudrillard’s conception of symbolic violence as the virulence of signs and help us come to terms with the semiotic foundation of terrorism.

Tele-Visioning Terror, Caroline Zekri

Re-visioning Terrorism

This paper is devoted to the relationship between terrorism and media, with a special focus on the theoretical notions of “icon”, “mass” and “distance”. It aims to show how the phenomenon of modern terrorism calls into question the essence of modern democracies and their systems of information, based on the distance between vision and event.

Marco Bellocchio's Buongiorno Notte And The Language Of Terrorists, Cosetta Gaudenzi

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay investigates Marco Bellocchio’s Buongiorno, notte (2003), a movie which exploits language and soundtrack to fictionalize and revisit the historical 1978 kidnapping and murder of the Christian Democrat President Aldo Moro by the 1970s Italian left terrorist group Brigate Rosse. As I demonstrate, Bellocchio relies greatly on the language and soundtrack of Buongiorno, notte to convey his negative response to the BR’s kidnapping and murder of Moro, as well as to come to terms with his own political and cinematic past.

Knights Of Justice: Blockbuster Terrorism In Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Revolution, Aaron Choo, Wilson Koh

Re-visioning Terrorism