On his book Cinema in an Age of Terror: North Africa, Victimization, and Colonial History
Cover Interview of May 16, 2011
In a nutshell
This book is about the ways that cinema teaches us how the idea of occupying the position of the victim is central to the dynamics of terrorism.
I became interested in the ways that the terrorized and the terrorizing seemed to share the common desire to occupy the position of the victim—to be seen as the victim—as a way of justifying their victimization.
Examining a number of films focusing on colonial history in North Africa that focused on images of victimization, it occurred to me that the visual aspect of victimization was important to the dynamics of terrorism. I began to examine, in particular, how films focusing on the images and spectacles of victimization that took place within colonial history might inform our understanding of terrorism today.
Cinema in an Age of Terror argues that films focusing on colonial-era victimization and terror enable us to see how victimization is very much about territory—cultural, spatial, and ideological.
So, while many films highlighting the terrorism of colonial history often focus on victimization as a way of producing a new or more complete version of history, I argue that they ultimately remain locked in a history that opposes torturer and tortured, victim and victimizer. I argue that, fundamentally, this vicious cycle is very much aligned with the dynamics of terrorism today and points to the centrality of the ideology of victimization within it.
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
In a nutshell
This book is about the ways that cinema teaches us how the idea of occupying the position of the victim is central to the dynamics of terrorism.
I became interested in the ways that the terrorized and the terrorizing seemed to share the common desire to occupy the position of the victim—to be seen as the victim—as a way of justifying their victimization.
Examining a number of films focusing on colonial history in North Africa that focused on images of victimization, it occurred to me that the visual aspect of victimization was important to the dynamics of terrorism. I began to examine, in particular, how films focusing on the images and spectacles of victimization that took place within colonial history might inform our understanding of terrorism today.
Cinema in an Age of Terror argues that films focusing on colonial-era victimization and terror enable us to see how victimization is very much about territory—cultural, spatial, and ideological.
So, while many films highlighting the terrorism of colonial history often focus on victimization as a way of producing a new or more complete version of history, I argue that they ultimately remain locked in a history that opposes torturer and tortured, victim and victimizer. I argue that, fundamentally, this vicious cycle is very much aligned with the dynamics of terrorism today and points to the centrality of the ideology of victimization within it.