Times Of Terror Research Articles

Adventure in times of terror

This article follows the history of the idea of adventure in the Soviet Union, which started as a dream of the great communist adventure but two decades into the revolution turned into the nightmare of the Great Terror. Adventure was implicated in the violent realities of Stalinism through tropes of the adventure genre, such as the loneliness of the adventurer in a precarious world impenetrable by reason. Understanding this situation requires a focus on philosophies of both adventure and terror. For instance, Hegel’s philosophy of adventure will help us to reveal features of the lived experience in times of terror, whilst Mikhail Ryklin’s philosophy of terror sheds light on the significance of the adventure genre in the Soviet 1930s. This double focus allows articulation of a primary feature of violence that is often overlooked, namely, the fundamental reciprocity that structures it. In the Soviet context, we find historically neglected but critically important reflections on the relation between violence and adventure in the life and works of Lev Kopelev. We also find a unique deliberation on the dialectics of violence (and counter-violence) in Evgeni Shvarc’s adventure tale The Dragon (1943) which can be fruitfully read in dialogue with Arendt’s vital distinction between violence and power. Reconsidering these sources is an important task for today given that Russian politics has once again, 30 years after perestroika, regressed into mass violence.

Public sentiment in times of terror

How do public sentiments towards the government change following terror attacks? The literature has traditionally answered this question using temporally aggregated voting data. This paper proposes an alternative, fine-grained approach to explore the short term dynamics underlying public sentiments. I first use high-frequency, media-reported event data to quantify PublicDiscontent, for 135 countries, over the period 2002–2020. Comparing the change in PublicDiscontent in country-months with successful terror attacks against country-months with failed terror attacks, I find that the average level of PublicDiscontent increases by approximately 11% in the 11 months following a successful terror attack. Information on government capability, political institutions and exposure to violence are incorporated in the response. Interestingly, characteristics of the national leader, such as gender, age, length of tenure and military experience, also affect the public response. Findings highlight short term dynamics of public sentiments as a critical component in shaping the citizen-state relationship.

Student Perceptions of the Library during Times of Terror: Exploratory Research Surveying Students Affected by the October 1 Shooting and Their Impressions of Safety in the Academic Library Community

On October 1, 2017, the history of Las Vegas, Nevada was forever changed when a mass shooting claimed the lives of 58 innocent people at a concert site on the Vegas Strip. Only three miles away, the University of Nevada Las Vegas and its main branch, Lied Library, became a space where students sought shelter and answers. To understand how this event impacted students’ perceptions of safety at UNLV, nine qualitative interviews were conducted asking students to consider the various qualities of a public place that make it feel safe. Students’ responses were analyzed to determine similarities and differences of “safe” locations on campus. Although each participant shared unique viewpoints as to where they would seek shelter and why, it was discovered that most students did not alter their actions regarding spatial use after the incident. More research must be conducted to determine if the majority of UNLV students feel similarly about their campus spaces and how the university can improve upon feelings of safety in the academic community.

Whiteness or Resilience? Placing Terror by Studying the Charleston, South Carolina Mother Emanuel Church Shooting

ABSTRACTHow do ideas of place support the development of racialized identities in times of terror violence? We situate this paper in the “deep” south via the shooting of 9 black churchgoers by a white supremacist. We explore how the community mobilized after the massacre, and in what ways it relied on ideas of place. While many claimed that the community exemplified resilience, we demonstrate a process of re-racialization. We analyzed local media to document place framing. This frame was recirculated in reporting of residents’ expressions about the tragedy. We conducted interviews with community leaders to deepen our understanding. We find that while place played a powerful role in the resilience narrative, the resilience was ultimately one of a city of whiteness. We advance several points: (1) whiteness adapts in times of terror; (2) place is important in the security studies; and (3) place also plays a role in attenuating fear.

Creating spaces of public insecurity in times of terror: The implications of code/space for urban vulnerability analyses

From data leaks of sensitive information to the degrading or halting of complete systems upon which integral societal process rely, there are daily reminders of the precariousness of networked institutions. This form of vulnerability extends beyond services to also threaten foundational values, such as privacy, movement, and free speech. Yet, given the awareness of vulnerability to cyber disruption, little is known about how massive cyber failures might disrupt the lives of ordinary people at a micro-scale. Because technology is imbued in everyday life, and people use internet systems in bundled, complex ways to accomplish a myriad of unknown activities, a complicated web of cyber-vulnerability likely exists. Thus, the goal of this paper is to explore one dimension of this vulnerability as it pertains to public security. Terrorism is predicted to remain an urban phenomenon, and terrorists are increasingly exploiting cyber-systems. The aims of terrorism to disrupt democratic systems are perfectly achieved by cyber disruption, and this paper explores how those goals were facilitated during the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. By drawing on interviews with public safety officials and ordinary people who relied on the internet and linked technology during that emergency, I demonstrate the complex ways that cyber-systems limited the effectiveness of public security in times of terror. The results suggest a rethinking of the social amplification of risk paradigm that dominates in risk hazards research as well as several policy interventions in security communication and information dissemination, population management during crisis, and resilience.

Bruno Bosteels, “Marx and Freud in Latin America. Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror”, London, Verso, 2012.

Bruno Bosteels, “Marx and Freud in Latin America. Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror”, London, Verso, 2012.

Applied theatre in times of terror: Accepting aesthetic diversity and going beyond dilemma

Abstract Through historical evidence and a research review, the positive assumption behind the Norwegian project is that theatre may provide democratic inclusion where any felt understanding can be accepted as aesthetically valid insights to be uttered on stage. This is how drama is created, and ultimately how diversity is treated and tolerated. However, dilemmas occur when applied theatre aims to be participatory democracy in action. These dilemmas, which are linked to conflicting practices and discourses, as the French philosopher Jacques Rancière (2004) shows, also connect to conflicting aesthetic thinking or regimes. The particular dilemma discussed here deals with the location of aesthetic autonomy as well as the dilemma of free utterance versus transformed mediation. A short analysis of two contemporary performance cases further illuminates the dilemma.

Studying how to build peace and deal with stereotypes and discrimination in a period of terror and despair: A case study from Israel

This paper aims to explore how Palestinian Arab and Jewish university students in Israel, attending a course on conflict resolution, deal with their stereotypical views of the Other and their prejudices, as well as their complex emotions of fear, hate, anxiety, and love during a period of tension and violence. On the one hand, they have a natural desire for professional partnership and friendship with their fellow students. On the other hand, they are attending this class in a Jewish university, in the heart of the Middle East, where acts of terrorism occur almost daily. This violence changes the power structure and the dynamics of their mutual relationships. Through an analysis of a specific case study the paper aims to shed light on how bridging theory and practice can generate a better understanding of complex situations, enabling reflection and developing signposts to improve coping mechanisms within peace education frameworks in times of terror.

Social Media’s Challenge to Journalistic Norms and Values during a Terror Attack

Over the past decade, the frequency of terror attacks around the world has increased. In the context of the 22 July 2011 terror attacks in Norway, social media use by citizens, and even victims, became an essential feature of reporting. Social media confronted the legacy media’s way of covering crisis events. It raised questions about traditional journalism’s ability to handle audience’s as, not only news consumers, but also producers. In the present article, we look at the ways in which the professional norms and values of traditional journalism are specifically challenged by social media use in times of terror, using the 22 July 2011 attacks as a case study. We find that Norwegian journalists initially held to their professional roles, and to the classic self-representational principles of journalism, including objectivity, autonomy and immediacy. When they integrated social media into their traditional platforms and modes of coverage, they framed it as a “source” of sorts. As the 22 July 2011 event coverage became more focused on the collective grief felt by the nation, in turn, the traditional journalistic principles of objectivity and autonomy became less relevant, enabling yet more audience participation and social media use in relation to the attack.

Women resisting terror: imaginaries of violence in Algeria (1966–2002)

ABSTRACT This article charts the roles and representations of Algerian Women as both agents and victims of violence in the War of Independence (1956–1962) and the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s in which the role of women emerged as a significant site of ideological, religious, and political struggle. This vision of Algerian Women, caught between models of participation and passivity, can be located within a long imaginary of Algerian women as exposed to colonial, patriarchal, state, or terrorist violence, but also possessing fortitude and resilience in the face of conflict. I examine the model of female agency through the figure of the bomb carrier in Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966), illuminating the gap between the freedom depicted, and promised, and the reality of women’s experience after the war. I then turn to the Algerian Civil War, considering one of the most enduring photographs to emerge from the conflict, Hocine Zaourar’s La Madone de Benthala (1997), an image that inscribes a quasi-universal image of female victimhood. Finally, an exploration of Yamina Bachir-Chouikh’s Rachida (2002) reveals a more complex staging of female resistance in times of terror. The film offers a delicate exploration of the emotional and psychological effects of political and symbolic violence, which troubles a more usual imaginary of Algerian women as noble, suffering, and endlessly resistant or resilient figures.

“The Bone Collectors” Comments for Sorrow as Artifact: Black Radical Mothering in Times of Terror

AbstractThis essay is based on comments for the panel Sorrow as Artifact: Black Radical Mothering in Times of Terror. Historically, Black mothers have faced the loss of their children in a myriad of ways, through enslavement, infant mortality, and police and state sanctioned violence. The normalizations of these losses are violent in and of themselves. In this discussion, we see that Black motherhood and mothering cannot escape being a site of political struggle animated by the labor of pain and terror. Simultaneously, radical Black mothering challenges the erasure of Black children and their exclusion from societal concern.

She Was a Twin: Black Strategic Mothering, Race‐Work, and the Politics of Survival

AbstractThis article, a part of the “Sorrow as Artifact: Radical Black Mothering in Times of Terror,” session given at the American Anthropological Association Meetings, 2014, grew out of ethnographic interviews conducted with African American upper‐middle‐class women living in Atlanta, Georgia and navigating decisions regarding career, marriage and family. Conversations that originally bore out Black elite women's turn to the “neo‐politics of respectability” as a strategy for mothering in the 21st century were further supported following the media coverage of the deaths of Black, primarily young people, at the hands of White male assailants. In this article, I explore the conundrum many elite African American women experience when trying to raise and protect their children. On one hand, African American women implement a strategy I call race‐work to protect their children. African American mothers talk to their children, implement and enforce rules of decorum, and extend their mothering practices to other members of the Black community in an effort to uplift the race. On the other hand, their race‐work strategies may be resulting in unintended health consequences to their pregnant bodies that in some cases result in illness or even death of their unborn children.

Sorrow as Artifact: Radical Black Mothering in Times of Terror—A Prologue

Sorrow as Artifact: Radical Black Mothering in Times of Terror—A Prologue

Marx and Freud in Latin America: Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror by Bruno Bosteels (review)

Marx and Freud in Latin America: Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror by Bruno Bosteels (review)

Marx and Freud in Latin America: Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror by Bruno Bosteels (review)

Marx and Freud in Latin America: Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror by Bruno Bosteels (review)

Evaluating Political Leaders in Times of Terror and Economic Threat: The Conditioning Influence of Politician Partisanship

We theorize that evaluations of leaders under terrorist and economic threat vary by both incumbency status and politician partisanship. This argument is based on insights from theories of rally effects, economic voting, and issue ownership, and we assess it with data from four national studies. The first two are experiments featuring hypothetical candidates; consistent with expectations based on issue ownership, the analyses show that Republican incumbents (Democratic challengers) are viewed comparatively better in times of terrorist (economic) threat. Then, with another experiment and with survey data, we consider evaluations of President Obama, whose image under terrorist threat should be helped by his incumbency but harmed by his partisanship, and the reverse for economic decline. We again find evidence supporting our argument and, further, individual-level evidence of issue ownership effects. We conclude that threats, incumbency status, and politician partisanship interact in important ways as they affect evaluations of political leaders.

Children’s relationships with homeroom teachers as a protective factor in times of terror

The contribution of students’ relationships with their homeroom teachers to their ability to cope with terror and specifically to posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth was studied. Participants consisted of 1101 Israeli high school students who lived under constant terror attacks. Positive relationships with homeroom teachers were found to be linked to higher posttraumatic growth though not to lower posttraumatic stress disorder. In addition, girls were found to have higher levels of posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth than boys, and both posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress disorder were found to be positively correlated with exposure to terror. The contribution of student–homeroom teacher relationships to students’ well-being when living under terror is discussed.

The ‘war within’: ethical and spiritual responsibilities to children in an age of terror and consumerism

What does it mean to live in global times of terror? What are our responsibilities to children in such times? This paper draws attention to how war and terror are internal states that express themselves externally. With reference to Asian wisdom traditions, and specifically the Bhagavad Gita, it suggests that spiritual insight into our fundamental anxiety around our perception of an inherent existential groundlessness provides possibilities for identifying and negotiating the war within. Contemplative practice offers a productive means for acquiring embodied insight. From this educative insight, we can clarify our responsibilities to children.

Sade's revenge: racial neoliberalism and the sovereignty of negation

ABSTRACT The present moment in US politics is one marked by a number of stark contradictions. Foremost among them is the popular perception that the nation's vicious legacy of racial exclusion and exploitation has been recognized and largely redressed through civil-rights-era advances and is now officially consigned to the past with the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama while, at the same time, racially indexed humiliation, harassment, violence and ‘civilizational war’ ruthlessly persist. A corollary paradox resides in a renewed belief in the pre-eminence of American values, moral leadership and purity of purpose, and the sadistic impulses that simultaneously course through the national culture, energizing its corporatism, militarism, religious fundamentalism, its punishment empire and its vast entertainment industry. Giroux examines the work of David Theo Goldberg, one of the world's most eminent philosophers of race, whose recent contribution The Threat of Race offers a new analytics and critical vocabulary to illuminate these tensions with unparalleled historical precision and theoretical sophistication. Because, as Goldberg rightly maintains, the pervasive contemporary commitment to ‘racial neoliberalism’ is predicated on historical amnesia, Giroux seeks to offer a comparative examination of present and past ‘times of terror’. In specific, she moves between late eighteenth-century and early twenty-first-century expressions of sovereign imagination and the claims to honour and virtue that subtend their policies of isolation, segregation, punishment, brutalization, torture and murder. The self-assigned moral imperative to ‘rid the world of evil’ comes increasingly to mean a declaration of war on a world of Others racially conceived, a project that invariably ends in the will to self-destruction.

Human rights in times of terror – a judicial point of view

This paper, delivered as the Second Scarman lecture, argues that the role of a judge on the Supreme Court of a democratic state is to protect both the constitution and the democracy. Judges in modern democracies should protect democracy both from terrorism and from the means the state wishes to use to fight terrorism. Judges meet their supreme test when they face situations of war and terrorism. The protection of human rights of every individual is a duty much more formidable in situations of war or terrorism than in times of peace and security. But if judges fail in their role in times of war and terrorism, they will be unable to fulfil their role in times of peace and tranquility. It is a myth to think that it is possible to maintain a sharp distinction between the status of human rights during a period of war and the status of human rights during a period of peace. The paper explores these issues through an examination of the need for a balanced and proportionate approach and by using illustrations from the example of the Israeli Supreme Court, with a focus on the role of judicial review in the ‘war on terror’.