Research Catalog

Title

Portraits of violence : war and the aesthetics of disfigurement / Suzannah Biernoff.

Author

Biernoff, Suzannah

Publication

• Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2017]
• ©2017.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 213 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

This book explores the image and idea of facial disfigurement in one of its most troubling modern formations, as a symbol and consequence of war. It opens with Nina Berman's iconic photograph Marine Wedding, which provoked a debate about the medical, military, and psychological response to serious combat injuries. While these issues remain urgent, it is equally crucial to interrogate the representation of war and injury. The concepts of valor, heroism, patriotism, and courage assume visible form and do their cultural work when they are personified and embodied. The mutilated or disabled veteran's body can connote the brutalizing, dehumanizing potential of modern combat. Suzannah Biernoff draws on a wide variety of sources mainly from WWI but also contemporary photography and computer games. Each chapter revolves around particular images: Marine Wedding is discussed alongside Stuart Griffiths' portraits of British veterans; Henry Tonks' drawings of WWI facial casualties are compared to the medical photographs in the Gillies Archives; the production of portrait masks for the severely disfigured is approached through the lens of documentary film and photography; and finally the haunting image of one of Tonks's patients reappears in BioShock, a highly successful computer game. The book simultaneously addresses a neglected area in disability studies; puts disfigurement on the agenda for art history and visual studies; and makes a timely and provocative contribution to the literature on the First World War.

Series Statement

Corporealities : Discourses of disability

Uniform Title

Corporealities.

Subjects

• Surgery, Plastic
• Disfigured persons > Treatment
• Theatrical prosthetic makeup
• Prosthesis > Case studies
• Disabled veterans > Rehabilitation
• War wounds > Treatment
• Mutilation > Treatment

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-205) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- The elusive portrait -- Aversion: a history -- Repairing war's ravages -- Flesh poems -- The afterlife of Henry Lumley -- Conclusion.

Call Number

JQE 17-948

ISBN

• 0472130293
• 9780472130290

OCLC

965764072

Author

Biernoff, Suzannah, author.

Title

Portraits of violence : war and the aesthetics of disfigurement / Suzannah Biernoff.

Publisher

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2017]

Copyright Date

©2017.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Corporealities : Discourses of disability

Corporealities.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-205) and index.

Research Call Number

JQE 17-948