The Wound and the Witness: The Rhetoric of Torture - Hardcover

Ballengee, Jennifer R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1438424914 ISBN 13: 9781438424910

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2009

Synopsis

Explores the rhetorical functions of torture and the witnessing of torture in both classical texts and contemporary contexts.

The Wound and the Witness offers a historically grounded approach to an urgent contemporary problem: the persistence of torture in Western culture. Drawing upon ancient Greek and Roman texts, as well as contemporary media events, Jennifer R. Ballengee explores the spectacle of torture as a persuasive device. She suggests that both torture and the witnessing of torture are forms of polemical writing, carried out on the body. The analysis combines close reading and philological study with a materialist cultural approach to ancient Greek theater, early Christian accounts of martyrdom, and recent political controversies over the interrogation tactics in the U.S. government-run Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib prisons. By incorporating key classical texts by Sophocles, Achilles Tatius, and Prudentius, the author demonstrates how deeply the ancient literature resonates with contemporary issues of the body, rhetoric, and the spectacle of pain.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The Wound and the Witness offers a historically grounded approach to an urgent contemporary problem: the persistence of torture in Western culture. Drawing upon ancient Greek and Roman texts, as well as contemporary media events, Jennifer R. Ballengee explores the spectacle of torture as a persuasive device. She suggests that both torture and the witnessing of torture are forms of polemical writing, carried out on the body. The analysis combines close reading and philological study with a materialist cultural approach to ancient Greek theater, early Christian accounts of martyrdom, and recent political controversies over the interrogation tactics in the U.S. government-run Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib prisons. By incorporating key classical texts by Sophocles, Achilles Tatius, and Prudentius, the author demonstrates how deeply the ancient literature resonates with contemporary issues of the body, rhetoric, and the spectacle of pain.

About the Author

Jennifer R. Ballengee is Associate Professor of English and Director of Cultural Studies at Towson University.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1438424914
• ISBN 13: 9781438424910
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 200