Published January 18, 2010
by iris_author
The Contemporary Dilemmas in Canadian Security Lecture Series:
The Culture, Technology, and Ethics of Virtuous War
Dr. James Der Derian
Thursday 21st January 2010
7-9pm
Theatre Room
Marriott Hotel Eaton Centre
525 Bay Street
Toronto
(Free Admission)
Questions of war and peace are now framed by technological, cultural, and ethical imperatives. From the Gulf War to the Iraq War, the United States perfected new technologies, under the auspices of a ‘revolution in military affairs’, to fight virtuous wars. Technology in the service of virtue gave rise to a new configuration of virtual power, the military-industrial-media-entertainment network. After winning the short battle of ’shock and awe’ in Iraq but losing the long war to bring democracy and peace to the Middle East, the U.S. military began a controversial program to ‘operationalize’ culture as an instrument of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism; anthropologists, political scientists and anthropologists are enlisted in the effort. As war goes virtual and cultural in the name of justice, unintended and tragic consequences result.
Dr. James Der Derian is Research Professor of International Studies at Brown University, where he directs the Innovating Global Security and Media Project at the Watson Institute for International Studies. His recent publications include, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, New York (Routledge, 2009); Critical Practices in International Theory (Routledge, 2009), and AntiDiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, & War (Blackwell, 1992). He is also the producer of three documentary films, VirtualY2K (2000), After 9/11 (2003) and Human Terrain (2009).
If you would like to attend please pre-register via this link: http://www.yorku.ca/yciss/forms/view.php?id=5
For further details on this event please see:
http://www.yorku.ca/yciss/news/upcoming.html
Posted in: Events
