Watching the Bombs Go Off: Photography, Nuclear Landscapes, and Spectator Democracy

This study examines the role of photography in the Atomic Energy Commission's representation of nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s. Pictures of fireballs and mushroom clouds functioned as part of an explicit AEC strategy to reduce the public to spectators. These photographs were designed to take the place out of the landscape — unlike the contaminated places near America's nuclear proving grounds, the pages of popular magazines were not subject to radioactive fall out. The seemingly neutral observations of the camera obscured the morphologies it appeared to represent. These arguments are developed primarily in terms of the militarization of space in Nevada, including a new geography of nuclear armament; the "story" of bomb testing produced though interaction of popular media with AEC objectives; and the social-theoretical context of photography, representation, and spectacle as politically malleable processes.     

Martin Amis,neo-Orientalism,and hubris

This article puts forward a reading of Martin Amis’s 2008 book The Second Plane with an emphasis on its cultural politics. It reconsiders Amis’s book from a distance of almost a decade in light of recent global developments, including the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, the resurgence of acute Islamophobia in Europe and the US, and Tony Blair’s public acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. With these factors in mind, the essay argues that it is possible to detect in Amis’s book early warning signs of how the West’s relationship with both Islamism and Islam would develop in the period following its publication. Drawing on William Connolly’s work on tragedy and Edward Said’s work on Orientalism, the essay argues that The Second Plane ought to be read as advancing a hubristic ‘neo-Orientalist’ cultural and political agenda which today threatens to lock much of the world into an ongoing cycle of recrimination and revenge. Against this, a case is made for an appreciation of the complex circumstances which give rise to suicide terrorism and for a sense of history largely absent from Amis’s writing on the subject.     

Youth, Racism, and Place in the Tony Martin Affair

This paper provides an analysis of media discourse surrounding the arrest, trial, and conviction of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for the murder of 16-year old Fred Barras, a Traveller from Newark, Nottinghamshire. The paper argues that discourses about Travellers (re)constructed in the media during the Martin affair showed evidence of both older, stereotypical representations of Travellers and newer ways of locating them in relation to contemporary societal anxieties about "dangerous youth", the "underclass", and "social exclusion". The coverage was often emblematic of political discourses in Britain, which too often emphasise the moral failings of the "excluded" without any significant discussion of the sources of inequalities.     

Martin Luther King,Jr, and the Possibilities of Democratic Politics

Abstract

This essay moves beyond the limits of the post-September 11 debate over national security versus civil liberties to consider again the possibilities of democratic politics. It briefly surveys three Protestant interpretations of American democracy that have dominated recent debates. These interpretations leave us with the dilemma of having to choose between democratic dissent and the political pursuit of the good. Such a dilemma begs for other interpretations. Martin Luther King, Jr, stands as an obvious but neglected resource. His interpretation of democracy reconciles the pursuit of the good, a substantive politics, with diversity and dissent. This argument requires the retrieval or reconstruction of King's interpretation, which involves an examination of King's religious convictions as well as his engagement in and reflection on the political arena. The essay concludes by suggesting how King's interpretation informs contemporary debates and shapes Christian practice.