Ruminations on Violence

Violence pervades humanity as experience, public policy, narrative, and mediated commodity. The goal of Ruminations on Violence is to discuss and analyze various contours of violence as it is made manifest around the world. This foundational collection of essays, stories, and poems represent a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives. The unifying theme is that violence is not a thing, but rather a dynamic force occurring among separate, conscious minds that is enhanced by the careful scrutiny of social science. This multifaceted anthology is both applied and theoretical in its approach, containing cross-cultural case studies and personal testimonies as well as impressionistic essays and theoretical statements on violence as a powerful discourse. The layout is thematic, moving from conventional anthropological and sociological issues of state-sponsored, ethnic, and domestic violence to media studies and popular-culture fields concerning the aesthetics and narration of violence. This uniquely eclectic viewpoint offers the reader interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives that will help them to understand the difficult issues surrounding the complex phenomenon that is violence.

Titles of related interest also from Waveland Press: Holmes-Gan, Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, Third Edition (ISBN 9781577667605) and Otterbein, The Anthropology of War (ISBN 9781577666073).