Article
Introduction: "The Body in Pain" at Thirty
Peace & Change: A Journal of Peach Research
(2015)
Abstract
The year 2015 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Elaine Scarry's seminal work The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World.1 Since its publication, Scarry has emerged as an important and paradoxical public intellectual whose writings on bodily pain, beauty, and war defy easy categorization. A staunch advocate of public engagement and thinking outside one's area of specialty, Scarry has cast her net widely, addressing such diverse topics as the cause of domestic plane crashes, the ethics of torture, the nature of beauty, and the meaning of democratic consent in war making. She is an uncompromising critic of the normalization of torture following 9/11, the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the concentration of military power in the executive branch. Her writings range from technical legal and scientific treatises to philosophical meditations on esthetics, violence, and pain. Each, in its own way, is useful to peace and social justice advocates.
Keywords
- "Body in Pain",
- Elaine Scarry
Publication Date
October 1, 2015
DOI
10.1111/pech.12144
Publisher Statement
© 2015 Peace History Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Citation Information
Kathleen Kennedy and Kathleen Z. Young. "Introduction: "The Body in Pain" at Thirty" Peace & Change: A Journal of Peach Research Vol. 40 Iss. 4 (2015) p. 489 - 496 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kathleen-young/7/