[Air-l] Special Issue: Psychological Anthropology of War

Orion Anderson libraryofsocialscience at earthlink.net
Tue Apr 25 11:11:02 PDT 2006


********************************************************

NOW AVAILABLE: Special Issue of the PEACE REVIEW on the PSYCHOLOGICAL
INTERPRETATION OF WAR

********************************************************

The Special Issue of the PEACE REVIEW (published by Taylor and Francis) is
now available. Based on over 150 proposals received, eleven articles were
accepted for publication. These essays represent the cutting edge of
contemporary thought on the psychology of warfare. A LIMITED NUMBER OF
COPIES OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE NOW ARE AVAILABLE

--------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to obtain a copy of the Special 
Issue on the PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF WAR, please 
CLICK HERE: https://www.ideologiesofwar.com/register/
--------------------------------------------------------

Articles included in this special issue are listed below. We also have
provided below brief excerpts that convey the excitement of this special
issue.
********************************************************

ARTICLES INCLUDE:

SACRIFICE, TRANSCENDENCE AND THE SOLDIER, Babak Rahimi, Assistant Professor
of Iranian and Islamic Studies at the University of California at San Diego.

GROUP PSYCHOLOGY, SACRIFICE AND WAR, Norman Steinhart, M.D., Research Fellow
at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of
Toronto, Canada

WAR AND THE RELIGIOUS WILL TO SACRIFICE, Patrick Porter, Tutor in Modern
History at the University of Oxford

MEMORIALIZATION AND THE SELLING OF WAR, Deborah D. Buffton, Professor of
History at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse

THE MYTHOLOGY OF WAR, Dr. Andrew Robinson, Political theorist, University of
Nottingham

THE MANIC ECSTASY OF WAR, Wendy C. Hamblet, Professor of Philosophy, Adelphi
University, New York

HUMILIATION AND THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR, Paul Saurette, Assistant Professor
School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada

DOMINANCE AND SUBMISSION IN POSTMODERN WAR IMAGERY, Myra Mendible, Associate
Professor of American Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University

GUILT AND SACRIFICE IN U.S. WARFARE, Carl Mirra, American Studies at SUNY
College, Old Westbury

MALE GENDER INSTABILITY AND WAR, Jeannette Marie Mageo, Professor of
Anthropology, Washington State University

COMBAT MOTIVATION, Johan M.G. van der Dennen, senior researcher on war and
peace at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands

---------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to obtain a copy of the Special 
Issue on the PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF WAR, please 
CLICK HERE: https://www.ideologiesofwar.com/register/
---------------------------------------------------------
For further information please contact Orion Anderson at (718) 393-1104 or
send an email to oanderson at ideologiesofwar.com

********************************************************

EXCERPTS FROM THE ARTICLES:

Buffton: War is so closely connected with the identity of nations that
participation in war is a necessary action to show one's devotion to the
country; a society cannot consider itself "alive" if its citizens are not
willing to die for it. Fighting and dying for one's country become the means
through which a society is "resurrected." We see this message of war
resurrecting society in war memorials. One of the most influential sculptors
of war memorials in post World War I France created monuments in which we
see a peasant woman at the grave of a soldier marked by a cross and a
helmet, but sprouting from the grave come abundant sheaves of wheat. The
message is that the blood of the dead soldiers brings forth new life to
reinvigorate the country.

Saurette: Once we understand 9/11 as fundamentally humiliating - and not
just threatening - the United States, we can make better sense of the
elements of the global war on terror. A legal approach would never have been
accepted by the administration, even if international laws were reliable and
effective enough to pursue al-Qaeda. Why? Although courts promise to provide
justice, they rarely explicitly deliver vengeance and counter-humiliation.
Criminal prosecution may provide restitution, but it could not deliver the
larger goal of counter-humiliating al-Qaeda and thus publicly
re-establishing global respect for America.

---------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to obtain a copy of the Special 
Issue on the PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF WAR, please 
CLICK HERE: https://www.ideologiesofwar.com/register/
---------------------------------------------------------

Mendible: Humiliation is one of the techniques through which institutions
and nations construct docile and disciplined bodies. Military institutions
inscribe the value of discipline and control on the soldier's body and
psyche. Phillip Caputo describes the demeaning aspects of his US marine
training. The rigorous and often painful physical trials, the drill sergeant
hollering insults, separated those worthy of the warrior's honor from the
"unsats"-the ones that carried "the virus of weakness." In forging a marine
corps-a military body defined by strength and hardness, the soldier
extirpates any trace of the feminine. Discipline begins with
self-abnegation; absolute surrender to the authority of the stern father
figure who punishes and rewards.

Rahimi: The soldier's experience in believing that he is dying for something
greater than himself, for something that will outlast his individual,
perishable life in place of a greater, eternal vitality (embodied in the
national or a religious identity) is crucial for the ideological
justification of war.

---------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to obtain a copy of the Special 
Issue on the PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF WAR, please 
CLICK HERE: https://www.ideologiesofwar.com/register/
---------------------------------------------------------

Steinhart: Willingness to offer up one's life to one's nation is perhaps
even more essential in war than fear and hatred of the enemy. It is because
everyone must contribute to the larger good that 'enemies' must be destroyed
or at least subdued, for many of these 'enemies' do not appear to citizens
as a threats in their daily lives or cause them harm directly.

Robinson: The people who engage in and support wars, or any other kind of
social action, are motivated by a conception of the world, i.e. a set of
conscious or unconscious beliefs and assumptions which make their course of
action seem justified, necessary or desirable. Wars commence in the culture
first of all and we kill each other in euphemisms and abstractions long
before the first missiles have been launched'.

Hamblet: Wars confirm the values, virtues and meanings of one's own cultural
group. Sacred symbols-flags, national anthems, tales of past heroes, fallen
ancestors-are put to work in luring the best of the nation-its strong and
courageous youths-to the extreme patriotism required to maintain order.

Mirra: In war, the good and bad selves are divided or split; the good is
retained for the self and the bad is exported or projected on to others.
Since the other subsumes these violent traits, it is seen as demonic and
worthy of annihilation. Individuals or nation-states that cause others to
suffer must somehow release themselves from the torment of guilt. The
easiest way to circumvent guilt is to cast one's enemies as inhumane, wholly
deserving of violent treatment.

van der Dennen: Despite the social legitimization of violence provided by
military institutions, the repugnance and revulsion many soldiers feel
toward killing is a recurring feature of the military literature. Marshall,
as we have seen, claimed that army psychiatrists studying combat fatigue in
the European theater had found that fear of killing, rather than fear of
being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure in the individual.

---------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to obtain a copy of the Special 
Issue on the PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF WAR, please 
CLICK HERE: https://www.ideologiesofwar.com/register/
---------------------------------------------------------




More information about the Air-L mailing list