The Violence of the Image: Photography and International Conflict

by Liam Kennedy (Editor), Caitlin Patrick (Editor)

Photography has visualized international relations and conflicts from the mid-nineteenth century onwards and continues to be an important medium in framing the worlds of distant and suffering others. The Violence of the Image examines the roles of image producers and the functions of photographic imagery in the documentation and communication of wars, violent conflicts and human rights issues. The book focuses on photojournalism, the premier visual genre in news media framing of international affairs through much of the twentieth century.

Genres: Photography

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 23, 2014

About the author

Professor Liam Kennedy is Director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin. He has diverse research interests and teaching experiences, spanning the fields of American urban studies, visual culture, globalisation and transatlantic relations.

He is the author of Susan Sontag: Mind as Passion (1995) and Race and Urban Space in American Culture (2000). He is co-editor of Urban Space and Representation (1999) and City Sites: An Electronic Book (2000), and editor of Remaking Birmingham: The Visual Culture of Urban Regeneration (2004).

Professor Kennedy's work is interdisciplinary, blending cultural and political modes of scholarly analysis, and represents American Studies as a valuable framework to study both American domestic and international affairs.

He is currently researching a monograph on photography and international conflict, and preparing two edited books - on urban photography and on cultural diplomacy and US foreign policy.