Overview

We all have images that we find unwatchable, whether for ethical, political, or sensory and affective reasons. From news coverage of terror attacks to viral videos of police brutality, and from graphic horror films to transgressive artworks, many of the images in our media culture might strike us as unsuitable for viewing. Yet what does it mean to proclaim something “unwatchable”: disturbing, revolting, poor, tedious, or literally inaccessible?   With over 50 original essays by leading scholars, artists, critics, and curators, this is the first book to trace the “unwatchable” across our contemporary media environment, in which viewers encounter difficult content on various screens and platforms. Appealing to a broad academic and general readership, the volume offers multidisciplinary approaches to the vast array of troubling images that circulate in global visual culture.  

Full Product Details

Author:   Nicholas Baer ,  Maggie Hennefeld ,  Laura Horak ,  Gunnar Iversen
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.490kg
ISBN:  

9780813599595

ISBN 10:   0813599598
Pages:   412
Publication Date:   14 January 2019
Recommended Age:   From 16 to 99 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contents Introduction: Envisioning the Unwatchable Part I: Violence and Testimony Theorizing the Unwatchable 1. W. J. T. Mitchell, Unwatchable 2. Boris Groys, The Gaze from Within 3. Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Unwatchable and the Unwatchable 4. Alenka Zupančič, Melting Into Visibility 5. Meghan Sutherland, Pro Forma Spectacles of Destruction 6. Jonathan Crary, Terminal Radiance 7. Poulomi Saha, Unwatched/Unmanned: Drone Strikes and the Aesthetics of the Unseen 8. Alex Bush, Breakaway 9. Meir Wigoder, The Watchability of the Unwatchable: Television Disaster Coverage Bearing Witness 10. Peter Geimer, The Incommensurable 11. Leshu Torchin, Not Seeing is Believing: The Unwatchable in Advocacy 12. Frances Guerin, Even If She Had Been a Criminal: A Past Unwatched 13. Federico Windhausen, Deframing Evidence: A Transmission from Los ingrávidos 14. Emily Regan Wills, Alan Kurdi’s Body on the Shore Visual Regimes of Racial Violence 15. Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Held Helpless in the Breach: On American History X 16. Jared Sexton, The Flash of History: On the Unwatchable in Get Out 17. Alexandra Juhasz, Nothing is Unwatchable for All 18. Michael Boyce Gillespie, Empathy. Complicity. Spectacularization and Resistance 19. Alok Vaid-Menon, Entertainment Value 20. Alec Butler, Holocausts, Hallowe’en, and Headdresses 21. Danielle Peers, Unwitnessable: Outrageous Ableist Impersonations and Unwitnessed Everyday Violence Part II:  Histories and Genres The Tradition of Provocateurs 22. Asbjørn Grønstad, The Two Unwatchables 23. Akira Lippit, Real Horrorshow 24. Mauro Resmini, Asymmetries of Desire: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 25. Mattias Frey, Unstomachable: Irréversible and the Extreme Cinema Tradition Enduring the Avant-Garde 26. Christophe Wall-Romana, Unwatchability by Choice: Isou’s Venom and Eternity 27. Kenneth Berger, The Refusal of Spectacle: Debord’s Howls for Sade 28. J. Hoberman, Warhol’s Empire: Unwatched and Unwatchable 29. Noël Carroll, Warhol's Empire 30. Erika Balsom, Watching Paint Dry Visceral Responses to Horror 31. Vivian Sobchack, “Peekaboo”: Thoughts on (Maybe Not) Seeing Two Horror Films 32. B. Ruby Rich, Why I Cannot Watch 33. Genevieve Yue, Apotropes Pornography and the Question of Pleasure 34. Susie Bright, I Am Curious (Butterball) 35. Bill Nichols, At the Threshold to the Void Archives and the Disintegrating Image 36. Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, Restoring Blood Money 37. Jan Olsson, Turning Garbo Watchable: From Swedish Bread Bun to Hollywood Goddess 38. Philipp Stiasny and Bennet Togler, Twilight of the Dead Part III: Spectators and Objects Passionate Aversions 39. Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Sad!”: Why I Won’t Watch Antichrist 40. Nathan Lee, Transforming Nihilism 41. Julian Hanich, Oh, Inventiveness! Oh, Imaginativeness! Precious Cinema and Its Discontents: A Rant 42. Jeffrey Sconce, The Biopic is an Affront to the Cinema Tedious Whiteness 43. Jack Halberstam, White Men Behaving Sadly 44. Brandy Monk-Payton, “You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important” or, Why I Can't Watch The Help 45. Mel Y. Chen, Two Tables and a Ladder: WCGW? Reality Trumpism 46. Lynne Joyrich, TV Trumps 47. Abigail De Kosnik, The Once and Future Hillary: Why I Won't Watch Any Fictionalizations of the 2016 Election Pedagogy and Campus Politics 48. Raúl Pérez, Why We Can’t Take a Joke 49. Jennifer Malkowski, The Bridge and Unteachable Films 50. Katariina Kyrölä, Squirming in the Classroom: Fat Girl and the Ethical Value of Extreme Discomfort The Triggered Spectator 51. E. Ann Kaplan, What is an “Unwatchable” Film? (With Reference to Amour and Still Alice) 52. Barbara Hammer, Watch at Your Own Peril 53. Samuel England, Sects, Fries, and Videotape 54. Rebecca Schneider, Off Watch Acknowledgments Filmography Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

Reviews

By posing a seemingly modest question--what visual experiences in our media-saturated world are 'unwatchable?'--the editors of this remarkable volume have elicited an astonishing range of intensely felt responses. They reveal the most potent anxieties of our troubled times, forcing us to attend to what we cannot bear to witness directly.

Author Information

NICHOLAS BAER is a collegiate assistant professor in the humanities and Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows at the University of Chicago in Illinois. He is the coeditor of the award-winning The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933.   MAGGIE HENNEFELD is an assistant professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author of Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes.   LAURA HORAK is an associate professor of film studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of the award-winning Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908–1934 (Rutgers University Press).   GUNNAR IVERSEN is a professor of film studies at Carleton University. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than twenty books.

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