Violence Studies – serie

***NOW IN PAPERBACK***School violence has become our new American horror story, but it also has its roots in the way it comments on western values with respect to violence, shame, mental illness, suicide, humanity, and the virtual. Beyond Columbine: School Violence and the Virtual offers a series of readings of school shooting episodes in the United States as well as similar cases in Finland, Germany, and Norway, among others and their relatedness.The book expands the author’s central premise from her earlier book Failure to Hold, which explores the hidden curriculum of American culture that is rooted in perceived inequality and the shame, rage, and violence that it provokes. In doing so, it goes further to explore the United States' outdated perceptual apparatus based on a reflective liberal ideology and presents a new argument about proprioception: the combined effect of a sustained lack of thought (non-cognitive) in action that is engendered by digital media and virtual culture. The present interpretation of the virtual is not limited to video games but encompasses the entire perceptual field of information sharing and media stylization (e.g., social networking, television, and branding). More specifically, American culture has immersed itself so thoroughly in a digital world that its violence and responses to violence lack reflection to the point where it confuses data with certainty. School-related violence is presented as a dramatic series of events with Columbine as its pilot episode.

Ever since Oedipus unwittingly killed his father and married his mother in Sophocles’ play, parricide – the killing of a parent or another close relative – has been a dominant motif in works of literature, film, psychoanalytic theory, and criminology. Yet, parricide, for much of the twentieth and twenty-first century, has been framed as an adolescent phenomenon, with child abuse proffered as the overriding cause related to the killing of parents. Respect, Defense, and Self-Identity provides a new way of understanding parricides by analyzing the behavior of offenders and victims at the scene of the crime in relation to the sources of conflict. This book examines the conflict between parents and their offspring across the life course and argues that parricides are shaped by factors such as respect, defense, and self-identity. Respect, Defense, and Self-Identity is recommended for classroom use in courses such as criminology, homicide, family violence, and social work.

The Pedagogy of Violent Extremism is the first critical analysis of violent extremism via the lens of pedagogical development that considers the nation as an all-encompassing learning environment. Presented through a critical perspective on violent extremism resulting from hegemonic provocation, Flores gives a voice to important social issues that are largely being ignored in contemporary society. Poignantly highlighted is how racism, immigration and other mismanaged social issues are creating the foundation for increased violence in America – by both government and non-government actors. Primarily based on the mismanagement of the demographic shift in the nation, a social imbalance between a Euro–Christian-based right and a growing minority population that are starting to clash violently as each side has resigned to taking action in the absence of a national government that can truly represent Americans across a multiethnic and multicultural construct.This is the perfect book for courses on violence studies and terrorism at secondary through graduate level studies. Its prose is designed to serve the purpose of academicians as well as the lay reader. The Pedagogy of Violent Extremism uses an interdisciplinary framework to explore how people learn to hate, and subsequently choose to use violent extremism. Flores enlightens the reader by challenging conventional perspectives on violence and terrorism in America. While portraying an America that will experience more violent extremism in the future, Flores provides many open doors for American leaders and the public at large that can lead to a reduction in future incidents of violent extremism.

For the true exercise of citizenship to occur, gender violence must be eradicated, as it is not an interpersonal problem, but an attack on the very concept of democracy. Despite increasing social awareness and legal measures taken to fight gender violence, it is still prevalent worldwide. Even in a country such as Spain, praised in the UN Handbook for Legislation on Violence Against Women (2010) for its advanced approach on gender violence, the legal framework has proved insufficient and deeper sociocultural changes are needed. This book presents, in this respect, groundbreaking investigations in the realm of politics, activism, and cultural production that offer both a complex picture of the agents involved in its transformation and a nuanced panorama of initiatives that subvert the normative framework of recognition of victims of gender violence. As a result, the book chapters articulate a construction of the victim as a subject that reflects and acts upon his/her experience and vulnerability, and also adopt perspectives that frame accountability within the representational tradition, the community, and the state.