War in Pieces - by Renée Laurel Pastel (Paperback)

About the Book

War in Pieces examines media representations of the "War on Terror" highlighting the cultural anxieties embodied in the narrative figures through whom stories were told about the conflicts as they happened. It argues that the fracturing of American national identity, seen in the contemporary divided landscape, can be traced back to this moment.

Book Synopsis

War in Pieces considers media representations of the first phase of the "War on Terror," set between 2001 and 2013. The book argues that the central figures around which narratives of the conflicts cohered--the war journalist, the active-duty service member, the veteran, and the military family--served to mask the loss of the myth of a unified American national identity and embodied the negotiation of cultural anxieties. Offering a theory of narrative figuration that draws into conversation repetitions and differences across media forms (fiction and nonfiction films, television shows, and online videos), this book breaks down how these figures contributed to a continued sense of unified national identity even as different audiences came away with divergent understandings. This book frames these questions in terms of how US media packaged the "War on Terror" for future cultural memory even as the conflicts continued.

Review Quotes

"Intriguing and insightful analysis of the conversation and myth-making that take place across media artifacts during moments of crisis. War in Pieces is a welcome addition to the body of scholarship determined to excavate the large and small ways media processed the War on Terror in real time."

"We commonly hear that the U.S. is a fractured nation, but Pastel clocks the moment when our most sacred myths splintered and went to battle with themselves. Theoretically deft and ambitious in scope, War in Pieces maps the persistent new tensions that now animate public life."

About the Author

RENÉE LAUREL PASTEL is an assistant professor of screen studies in the Communication Department at Boston College.