Abstract
IN THE “INTERMISSION” chapter of her new and final book, Show Time: The Logic and Power of Violent Display, Lee Ann Fujii recounts some of the challenges of asking people to talk to her about violence in their communities and occasionally in their families. A woman in a town in Maryland that had been the scene of a lynching roughly 80 years earlier refused her requests, declaring, “I don’t know why anyone would want to write a book on violence.”
Fujii had expected that, with the passage of time, it would become easier to talk about the racist murder. Instead, she found no distance at all; the violence continued to demand an uneasy silence. This non-conversation repeats an idea that threads through Fujii’s work: that one can never observe violence from a detached position. Violence makes claims upon anyone who witnesses or studies it.
Fujii had expected that, with the passage of time, it would become easier to talk about the racist murder. Instead, she found no distance at all; the violence continued to demand an uneasy silence. This non-conversation repeats an idea that threads through Fujii’s work: that one can never observe violence from a detached position. Violence makes claims upon anyone who witnesses or studies it.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Specialist publication | Los Angeles Review of Books |
| Publication status | Published - 23 Jul 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- violence
- political violence
- lynching
- genocide
- Atrocity crimes
