Jenny Edkins

The face is central to contemporary politics. In Deleuze and Guattari's work on faciality we find an assertion that the face is a particular politics, and dismantling the face is also a politics. This book explores the politics of such diverse issues as images and faces in photographs and portraits; expressive faces; psychology and neuroscience; face recognition; face blindness; facial injury, disfigurement and face transplants through questions such as: What it might mean to dismantle the face, and what politics this might entail, in practical terms? What sort of a politics is it? Is it already taking place? Is it a politics that is to be desired, a better politics, a progressive politics? The book opens up a vast field of further research that needs to be taken forward to begin to address the politics of the face more fully, and to elaborate the alternative forms of personhood and politics that dismantling the face opens to view. The book will be agenda-setting for scholars located in the field of international politics in particular but cognate areas as well who want to pursue the implications of face politics for the crucial questions of subjectivity, sovereignty and personhood.

Covering a broad range of approaches within critical theory including Marxism and post-Marxism, hermeneutics, feminism, queer theory, deconstruction and psychoanalysis, this book provides students with an introduction to 32 key critical theorists whose work has been influential in the field of international relations.

Born into privilege, Sibylla lives by choice on the chilly streets of Stockholm. When she spends a night with a businessman, and his body is found the next morning, she becomes a wanted woman.

"Offering a sophisticated introduction to the major poststructuralist thinkers, this book shows how Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and Zizek can help us expose the depoliticization found in conventional international relations theory."--BOOK JACKET.

This provocative analysis of notions of subject and identity in international relations goes beyond discussions of identity politics to argue that sovereignty and subjectivity implicate each other, together constituting the political. The authors consider how specific pictures of the subject and of political space still capture our desires; they also examine the links those pictures have with power, the state, and the status quo. Their juxtaposition of theoretical analyses, empirical studies, and personal accounts provides a challenging exploration of the political impact of identity as produced through practice, the legacy of modernity, and the intimate but often invisible relationship of self to other.

"Edkins examines Malthus and the origins of famine theory in notions of scarcity. Drawing on the work of Lacan, de Waal, Foucault, Zizek, and particularly Derrida, she considers Amartya Sen's entitlement approach, the Band Aid/Live Aid events, and food for work projects in Eritrea as examples of the technologization and repoliticization of famine. From the politics of famine to the practices of aid, from the theories of modernity to the complex emergencies of modern life, from the broad view to the telling detail, this searching book takes us closer to a clear understanding of some of the worst ravages of our time."--BOOK JACKET.

Despite the imperative for change in a world of persistent inequality, racism, oppression and violence, difficulties arise once we try to bring about a transformation. As scholars, students and activists, we may want to change the world, but we are not separate, looking in, but rather part of the world ourselves. The book demonstrates that we are not in control: with all our academic rigour, we cannot know with certainty why the world is the way it is, or what impact our actions will have. It asks what we are to do, if this is the case, and engages with our desire to seek change. Chapters scrutinise the role of intellectuals, experts and activists in famine aid, the Iraq war, humanitarianism and intervention, traumatic memory, enforced disappearance, and the Grenfell Tower fire, and examine the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time, space and materiality, and ideas of the human and sentience. Plays and films by Michael Frayn, Chris Marker and Patricio Guzmán are considered, and autobiographical narrative accounts probe the author?s life and background. The book argues that although we might need to traverse the fantasy of certainty and security, we do not need to give up on hope.

"In recent years we have witnessed an increasing convergence of work in International Politics and Performance Studies around the troubled and often troubling, relationship between politics and aesthetics. Whilst examination of political aesthetics, aesthetic politics, and politics of aesthetic practice has been central to research in both disciplines for some time, the emergence of a distinctive performative turn in International Politics and a critical return to the centrality of politics and the concept of the political in Performance Studies highlights the importance of investigating the productivity of bringing the methods and approaches of the two fields of enquiry into dialogue and mutual relation. Exploring a wide range of issues including rioting, youth driven protests, border security practices and the significance of cultural awareness in war, this text provides an accessible and cutting edge survey of the intersection of international politics and performance examining issues surrounding the politics of appearance, image, event and place and discusses the development and deployment of innovative critical and creative research methods, from auto ethnography to site specific theatre making, from philosophical aesthetics to the aesthetic thought of new securities scenario planning The book's focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices on the politics of making, spectating, and participating in a variety of modes as political actors and audiences whilst also seeking to explicate the performative dynamics of creative and critical thinking. Structured thematically and framed by a detailed introduction and conclusion, the focus is on producing a dialogue between contributors and providing an essential reference point in this developing field. This work is essential reading for students of politics and performance and will be of great interest to students and scholars of IR performance studies and cultural studies "-- "The book focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices"--