Overview

Going beyond a discussion of political architecture, Walled Life investigates the mediation of material and imagined border walls through cinema and art practices. The book reads political walls as more than physical obstruction, instead treating the wall as an affective screen, capable of negotiating the messy feelings, personal conflicts, and haunting legacies that make up “walled life” as an evolving signpost in the current global border regime. By exploring the wall as an emotional and visceral presence, the book shows that if we read political walls as forms of affective media, they become legible not simply as shields, impositions, or monuments, but as projective surfaces that negotiate the interaction of psychological barriers with political structures through cinema, art, and, of course, the wall itself. Drawing on the Berlin Wall, the West Bank Separation barrier, and the U.S.-Mexico border, Walled Life discovers each wall through the films and artworks it has inspired, examining a wide array of graffiti, murals, art installations, movies, photography, and paintings. Remediating the silent barriers, we erect between, and often within ourselves, these interventions tell us about the political fantasies and traumatic histories that undergird the politics of walls as they rework the affective settings of political boundaries.

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9781501380402

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Reviews

The book is well researched, well written and coherent-the chapters 'speak to each other'. The author is very knowledgeable of the subject, and the book is clearly structured and free of jargon. The author is well-informed on the topic of walls and their representation in cinema and the art, very skillful in analyzing other visual media, and versed in political discourse and cinema history and theory. * Ewa Mazierska, Professor of Film Studies, School of Arts and Media, University of Central Lancashire, UK * Walled Life provides an incisive and timely look at the way that visual arts mediate our collective understandings of walls as barriers and mental constructions. From the Berlin Wall to Palestine and the Mexico/US border, Stumer skillfully reads the films and art that these physical and symbolic structures continue to inspire. * Michael Gott, Associate Professor of French and Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies, University of Cincinnati, USA * Even before the pandemic, numerous physical and psychological walls have been erected worldwide. Walled Life gives a magnificent explanation for this proliferation of walls and for the fantasies that uphold them. Essential reading for our times! * Renata Salecl, Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis & Law, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK and author of A Passion for Ignorance *

The book is well researched, well written and coherent-the chapters 'speak to each other'. The author is very knowledgeable of the subject, and the book is clearly structured and free of jargon. The author is well-informed on the topic of walls and their representation in cinema and the art, very skillful in analyzing other visual media, and versed in political discourse and cinema history and theory. --Ewa Mazierska, Professor of Film Studies, School of Arts and Media, University of Central Lancashire, UK Walled Life provides an incisive and timely look at the way that visual arts mediate our collective understandings of walls as barriers and mental constructions. From the Berlin Wall to Palestine and the Mexico/US border, Stumer skillfully reads the films and art that these physical and symbolic structures continue to inspire. --Michael Gott, Associate Professor of French and Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies, University of Cincinnati, USA Even before the pandemic, numerous physical and psychological walls have been erected worldwide. Walled Life gives a magnificent explanation for this proliferation of walls and for the fantasies that uphold them. Essential reading for our times! --Renata Salecl, Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis & Law, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK and author of A Passion for Ignorance

Author Information

Jenny Stümer is a researcher at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies at the University of Heidelberg, Germany and an honorary academic at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research explores the fortification of border walls through cinema and art practices and has appeared in Cultural Politics, New Global Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Parallax, and Cultural Critique.

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