Description
Book SynopsisIn Show Time, Lee Ann Fujii asks why some perpetrators of political violence, from lynch mobs to genocidal killers, display their acts of violence so publicly and extravagantly. Closely examining three horrific and extreme episodesthe murder of a prominent Tutsi family amidst the genocide in Rwanda, the execution of Muslim men in a Serb-controlled village in Bosnia during the Balkan Wars, and the lynching of a twenty-two-year old Black farmhand on Maryland''s Eastern Shore in 1933Fujii shows how violent displays are staged to not merely to kill those perceived to be enemies or threats, but also to affect and influence observers, neighbors, and the larger society.
Watching and participating in these violent displays profoundly transforms those involved, reinforcing political identities, social hierarchies, and power structures. Such public spectacles of violence also force members of the community to choose sidesopenly show support for the goals of
Trade Review
Overall, Show Time is an extraordinary text that is as profound as it is provocative. The text also serves as a master-class in using the hyper-local to explain micro-dynamics.
* International Affairs *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Fixations: The Making and Unmaking of Categories
2. Rehearsal
3. Main Attraction
4. Intermission
5. Sideshow
6. Encore
7. Fictions: The Making and Unmaking of Boundaries
Epilogue
