Violence, culture, and censure
By: edited by Colin Sumner.
Contributors: Sumner, Colin.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 1996
Place of publication: London; Bristol, Pa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 221
Subjects: Violence.; Violence -- History -- 20th century.; Social control.; Social control -- History -- 20th century.
Description: Violence, Culture and Censure consists of a series of original and challenging essays reflecting upon the understanding and moral judgement of violence in the twentieth century. It shows that even serious violence is not a simple behavioural fact speaking for itself but a category of thought and practice deeply rooted in history, culture and society.

Representing contemporary theoretical developments within sociological criminology, this book suggests that the twentieth century has thrown so much philosophical doubt over the idea that violence is unequivocally and always bad behaviour that the issue for many now concerns what violence means. The book is thus at the interface between sociology and cultural studies.

Taking a range of examples, the authors illustrate the difficulties in defining and explaining violence outside of a theory of the censures which either inspire it or describe it, and thus the value of understanding its relation to cultural and historical context. They illustrate the uncomfortable proximity between practices of censured violence and the censorious violence of law and order.

This dialectical theme is evidenced by studies of violence in areas of much contemporary interest including: sadomasochism, the Holocaust, Latin American dictatorships, the punishment of blacks in the USA, the content of Tarantino films, and the philosophy of violence.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-208) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: the violence of censure and the censure of violence / Colin Sumner; title: On the violence of censure / Claire Valier; title: Psychoanalytic sociology and the Holocaust / David Craig; title: The Nazi censure of art: aesthetics and the process of annihilation / Anthony Amatrudo; title: Populism as social control in Latin America / Laurence Grant; title: The America prison problem, hegemonic crisis, and the censure of inner-city blacks / Ethan Raup; title: Natural born killers: violence, film and anxiety / Victoria Harbord; title: Nihilism and the philosophy of violence / Steve Goodman.