Visual Occupations: Violence and Visibility in a Conflict Zone

Gil Z. Hochberg

Published by Duke University Press 2015

Visual Occupations

Violence and Visibility in a Conflict Zone

Gil Z. Hochberg

In the series Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822375517

Overview
Contents

About this book

Gil Z. Hochberg examines films, photography, painting and literature by Israeli and Palestinian artists. Israel's greater ability to control what can be seen, how, and from what position drives the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The artists Hochberg studies challenge Israel's visual and social dominance by creating new ways to see the conflict.

Author / Editor information

Gil Z. Hochberg is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at UCLA. She is the author of In Spite of Partition: Jews, Arabs and the Limits of Separatist Imagination.

Reviews

"Both Visual Occupations and Digital Militarism are ultimately about the gaze, about the ability of Israelis to see themselves as perpetrators and about the ability of Palestinians to return, refuse, or otherwise manage the disciplining gaze of military and international aid organizations alike. Kuntsman and Stein, and Hochberg all demand that their readers see a long violence in pictures of events that might be taken as spectacular or ruptural, in images that seem to show nothing at all."

-- Jenna Brager The New Inquiry

"Hochberg's is a timely and important book that demonstrates that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is determined in and by the visual realm and through the shape of visual fields.... Visual Occupations reveals the great extent to which the Israeli occupation of Palestine is interwoven and deeply embedded in the visual politics of cultural production—informing its content, framing, form, message, and even execution—yet the visibility of this influence is not always apparent."

-- Sara Rodrigues PopMatters

"Ariella Azoulay, Eyal Weizman,Neve Gordon, and others have created a rich corpus of work on spatial inequality in the region, to which Hochberg adds a vital and innovative dimension in her exploration of its visual field. Organized according to the key concepts of concealment, surveillance, and witnessing, Visual Occupations provides a lucid, incisive analysis of the unequal visual rights that sustain the Zionist project."

-- Alessandra Amin Art Journal

"Visual Occupations is an important and provocative book. Hochberg’s discussion of the place of the visual in this 'conflict' that is no longer consigned to a secondary or background subject within the scholarship on Palestine/Israel is a most welcome addition."

-- Kiven Strohm ReOrient

"Hochberg’s study is firmly grounded in the familiar analysis of the politics of visuality, focusing on who can see and whose vision is obstructed, who can be seen and who is confined to invisibility, and on the violent practices that impose this economy of the visual. . . . To achieve both a fruitful general framework and a careful study of the specificities of each practice and each artistic manifestation of the visual power-struggle, Hochberg also incorporates in her close readings various other critical perspectives, such as queer studies, film studies, psychoanalysis, and the politics of ethics."

-- Orly Lubin GLQ

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Visual Politics at a Conflict Zone Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I Concealment
1. Visible Invisibility On Ruins, Erasure, and Haunting Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
2. From Invisible Spectators to the Spectacle of Terror Chronicles of a Contested Citizenship Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
PART II Surveillance
3. The (Soldier’s) Gaze and the (Palestinian) Body 3. The (Soldier’s) Gaze and the (Palestinian) Body Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
4. Visual Rights and the Prospect of Exchange The Photographic Event Placed under Duress Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
PART III Witnessing
5. “Nothing to Look At”; or, “For Whom Are You Shooting?” The Imperative to Witness and the Menace of the Global Gaze Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
6. Shooting War On Witnessing One’s Failure to See (on Time) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Closing Words Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 232
Illustrations
- Other: 56 illustrations

eBook

Published: May 17, 2015
ISBN: 9780822375517