num_pages: 193
description: Frames of War begins where Butlers Precarious Lives left off: on the idea that we cannot grieve for those lost lives that we never saw as lives to begin with. In this age of CNN-mediated war the lives of those wretched populations of the earththe refugees; the victims of unjust imprisonment and torture; the immigrants virtually enslaved by their starvation and legal disenfranchisementare always presented to us as already irretrievable and thereby already lost. We may shake our heads at their wretchedness but then we sacrifice them nonetheless for they are already forgone.By analyzing the different frames through which we experience war Butler calls for a reorientation of the Left toward the precarity of those lives. Only by recognizing those lives as precarious liveslives that are not yet lost but are ever fragile and in need of protectionmight the Left stand in unity against the violence perpetrated through arbitrary state power.
language: English
title: Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?
publisher: Verso