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"Can violence be narrated? Can language help us understand the pain of others, of ourselves? Can words and images give shape to extreme bodily and mental experiences? How do we "interpret" violence and suffering – and can these interpretations be violent themselves? This book raises fundamental questions about the reach and limits of language and human imagination. At the same time, it urges us to radically think through – supported by a rich repertoire of philosophical, narrative, and cultural concepts – the nature of violence and the entire range of its brutal and subtle forms."

-Jens Brockmeier, Professor of Psychology, The American University of Paris, France

"The title Interpreting Violence immediately calls up the need for witnessing, that crucial activity that is the only thing we can do. But witnessing, as the first chapter of this book already intimates, is a socio-cultural attitude that can counter the violence of ghoulish reveling - remember Adorno’s warning. The authors, all renowned cultural analysts, delve deep into the many different aspects of the presence of violence in culture; the impossibility yet necessity to represent it. Erasure is no better solution than voyeurism. This is a book that matters."

-Mieke Bal, Cultural analyst and video artist

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