ABSTRACT

Beyond the Rhetoric of Pain presents a fresh, interdisciplinary approach to the current research on pain from a variety of scholarly angles within Literature, Film and Media, Game Studies, Art History, Hispanic Studies, Memory Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, and Law. Through the combination of these perspectives, this volume goes beyond the existing structures within and across these disciplines framing new concepts of pain in attitude, practice, language, and ethics of response to pain.

Comprised of fourteen unique essays, Beyond the Rhetoric of Pain maintains a common thread of analysis using a historical and cultural lens to explore the rhetoric of pain. Considering various methodologies, this volume questions the ethical, social and political demands pain makes upon those who feel, watch or speak it. Arranged to move from historical cases and relevance of pain in history towards the contemporary movement, topics include pain as a social figure, rhetorical tool, artistic metaphor, and political representation in jurisprudence.

chapter 1|24 pages

Visualising Pain

A History of Representations of Suffering in Medical Texts

chapter 2|16 pages

Mirrors and Shadows

Photography as a Way of Sharing Pain Experience in Medical Pain Consultations

chapter 3|18 pages

Atrocity and the Pain in Law

chapter 4|14 pages

Choked by the Brutal Fact of Being

The Concept of Pain in the Early Works of Emmanuel Levinas

chapter 5|18 pages

‘I Honestly Felt Sick’

Affect and Pain in Viewers’ Responses to Holocaust Films

chapter 6|19 pages

Memory Beyond the Anthropocene

The Tactile Rhetorics of Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia de la luz and El botón de nácar

chapter 7|17 pages

The Proper Name of Our Dispossession

Notes on Filming the Blood of the Martyrs of the Arab Revolutions 1

chapter 8|22 pages

‘Needs to Be Done’

The Representation of Torture in Video Games and in Metal Gear Solid V

chapter 11|28 pages

Pain and Writing

An Interview with Diamela Eltit

chapter 12|7 pages

Translating Pain