War after Death: On Violence and Its Limits

by Steven Miller

Overview

War after Death considers forms of violence that regularly occur in actual wars but do not often factor into the stories we tell about war, which revolve invariably around killing and death.

Recent history demonstrates that body counts are more necessary than ever, but the fact remains that war and death is only part of the story—an essential but ultimately subordinate part. Beyond killing, there is no war without attacks upon the built environment, ecosystems, personal property, artworks, archives, and intangible traditions.

Destructive as it may be, such violence is difficult to classify because it does not pose a grave threat to human lives. Nonetheless, the book argues that destruction of the nonhuman or nonliving is a constitutive dimension of all violence—especially forms of extreme violence against the living such as torture and rape; and it examines how the language and practice of war are transformed when this dimension is taken into account.

Finally, War after Death offers a rethinking of psychoanalytic approaches to war and the theory of the death drive that underlies them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823256808
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	03/03/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Steven Miller is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Psychoanalysis and Culture at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. He is author of War After Death: On Violence and Its Limits and translator of books by Catherine Malabou, Étienne Balibar, and Anne Dufourmantelle.

Table of Contents

Introduction (i.e., the death drive)
1. Statues Also Die
2. Open Letter to the Enemy: Jean Genet, War, and the Exact Measure of Man
3. Mayhem: Symbolic Violence and the Culture of the Death Drive
4. War, Word, Worst: Reading Samuel Beckett's Worstward Ho
5. Translation of a System in Deconstruction: Derrida and the War of Language against Itself
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Steven Miller's book War After Death is a truly impressive piece of critical writing. Indeed, this book is one of the most intellectually rich, trenchant and engaging works of criticism that I have read over the last decade."-Elissa Marder, Emory University

"In the long tradition and ever growing sea of works that have linked 'language, literature, and war,' this is a strikingly original work that attends to the import of that phrase with exquisite responsibility."-Gil Anidjar, Columbia University

From the Publisher

Steven Miller's book War After Death is a truly impressive piece of critical writing. Indeed, this book is one of the most intellectually rich, trenchant and engaging works of criticism that I have read over the last decade.

Emory University - Elissa Marder

In the long tradition and ever growing sea of works that have linked 'language, literature, and war,' this is a strikingly original work that attends to the import of that phrase with exquisite responsibility.

Columbia University - Gil Anidjar