Description: "This unique study offers a political analysis of the relationship between visual representations and the politics of violence both nationally and internationally. It emphasizes the spectator and his or her own involvement in, responsibility for, and potential responses to the conditions depicted in given images. Through a series of case studies which engage with visual representations of the politics of violence, such as the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the visualization of colonial memory, it analyzes the relationship between visibility and political agency and elaborates the extent to which people who have normally been subjects of the image production of others can become agents of their own image. This book's comprehensive analysis of different genres including photography, graphic novels, comics and paintings introduces a new research agenda for the emerging field of visual peace. "--
Review Quotes:
"Frank Möller's Visual Peace is a searching and original study. While much recent writing about photography and visual culture has focused on violence and conflict, and much of that work has relied on unexamined assumptions about spectatorship, Moller departs in two important and very fruitful ways. He subjects those assumptions to rigorous scrutiny, developing a compelling account of the viewer as 'participant witness, ' and he shifts the axis of inquiry from the problem of violence to the prospects for peace. The result is an important and richly rewarding book."
- Mark Reinhardt, Williams College, USA
"Fluently moving across a wide-range of media, Visual Peace offers a lucid reappraisal of the current state of photojournalism. In a refreshingly inquisitive and jargon-free prose, Möller explores what it means to encounter images, and how we may gain and exert agency through them. Making a compelling case for the emerging field of Visual Peace Studies, among the book's many merits is that it engages us both as readers and as viewers, eliciting a space to experience and reflect upon the visual source material on our own. For at stake are not merely what we demand from images, but ultimately what we demand from ourselves."
- Henrik Gustafsson, University of Tromsø, Norway