The Tropes of War ― Visual Hyperbole and Spectacular Culture

The Tropes of War: Visual Hyperbole and Spectacular Culture examines the remnants of war, the shards that construct the narratives, not only of our current wars (Global War on Terror, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, and the war in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom), but previous wars in Europe, and documents how those who return and record their memories - whether through the construction of graphic novel memoirs, documentary films, photojournalism, or by working to heal wounds by making peace, endeavour to excavate these broken pieces. Moreover, the theatre of war has been transferred from physical space to virtual space. Given this interconnectivity of warfare, this stream of information, and the ability to manipulate and control this data (think Pvt. Bradley Manning and NSA secret-leaker Edward Snowden), we recognize that warfare, in the age of new media, has been redefined, and is, in fact, viral. War, as it manifests itself in our culture, as it washes over us and invades our public imagination, becomes an indelible part of our landscape: fashion, movies, graphic novels, television, video games, dolls, and other representative artifacts determine a society's view of warfare, but it can also demarcate paths toward resistance, and, ultimately, peace.

Andrea Greenbaum, Ph.D., is a Professor of English at Barry University, USA, where she teaches classes in fiction writing, cultural studies, gender, the graphic novel, war, and screenwriting. She is the Director of the Professional Writing Program, the co-editor of Judaic Perspectives in Rhetoric and Composition Studies, author of Jews of South Florida and Emancipatory Movements in Composition: The Rhetoric of Possibility, and co-author of Insurrections: Approaches to Resistance in Composition Studies. Recently, she was selected as a Fellow for the Sundance Screenwriter's Institute for her script, 36.