Description

What remains after war? In the world wars more than 120 million people died an untimely or violent death. The terrible experience of mass death remained seared into the cultural narrative for years. The cultural output repeated, reinforced, or renegotiated people’s beliefs about war and suffering, turning trauma into something that could be situated within the conventions of public display.

In War Remains, an interdisciplinary group of researchers offer an innovative approach to the media history, arguing for the importance of media forms and specificity for remembering and sensing war. They point out how the conflicts of the past are indeed conflicts of the present: the impact of the of world war era is resounding in the mediation of contemporary conflicts, the media dependence, and the myriad ways war remains with us today.

The authors present analyses from media forms such as literary fiction, newspapers, radio, film, comic books, and weekly magazines between the 1910s and the 1970s. They apply perspectives from history, human rights studies, media history, journalism, film studies, comparative literature, publishing studies, and rhetoric.