Peace, War, and Critique
Abstract
This article offers a brief exploration of the contradictory meanings of "war" and "peace", beginning with the ways in which, paradoxically, one term is supposed to engender its opposite. Inspired by sources as diverse as James Madison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and Judith Butler, the author tries to imagine what it would take to break the war-and-peace continuum.
Keywords
peace; war; America
References
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The "Sapienza" University of Rome, Italy Italy
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8135-0330
Giorgio Mariani is a Professor of American Literature at the “Sapienza” University of Rome, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. He has served as President of the International American Studies Association (IASA), from 2011 to 2015. His work has concentrated on nineteenth-century American writers (Emerson, Melville, Stephen Crane, and others); on contemporary American Indian literature; on literary theory; on the literary and cinematic representation of war. He has published, edited, and co-edited several volumes, listed below. His essays and reviews have appeared in many journals, including American Literary History, Studies in American Fiction, Fictions, RIAS, RSA Journal, Stephen Crane Studies. Nuovo Corrente, Zapruder, Leviathan, Letterature d'America, A.I.O.N., Acoma, Studi Americani. With Donatella Izzo he edits the American Studies series of the Sapienza UP, and with Donatella Izzo and Mauro Pala he edits the series "Le Balene" published by La Scuola di Pitagora. He is co-editor-in-chief with (Donatella Izzo and Stefano Rosso) of Acoma. Rivista internazionale di studi nord-americani. His books published in English include: Waging War on War. Peacefighting in American Literature (2015), Post-tribal Epics: The Native American Novel between Tradition and Modernity (1996), Spectacular Narratives: Representations of Class and War in Stephen Crane and the American 1890s (1992).
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