| Notes: | Machine generated contents note: Contents
Introduction: Envisioning the Unwatchable
Part I: Violence and Testimony
Theorizing the Unwatchable
1. W. J. T. Mitchell, Unwatchable
2. Boris Groys, The Gaze from Within
3. Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Unwatchable and the Unwatchable
4. Alenka Zupančič, Melting Into Visibility
5. Meghan Sutherland, Pro Forma
Spectacles of Destruction
6. Jonathan Crary, Terminal Radiance
7. Poulomi Saha, Unwatched/Unmanned: Drone Strikes and the Aesthetics of the Unseen
8. Alex Bush, Breakaway
9. Meir Wigoder, The Watchability of the Unwatchable: Television Disaster Coverage
Bearing Witness
10. Peter Geimer, The Incommensurable
11. Leshu Torchin, Not Seeing is Believing: The Unwatchable in Advocacy
12. Frances Guerin, Even If She Had Been a Criminal: A Past Unwatched
13. Federico Windhausen, Deframing Evidence: A Transmission from Los ingravidos
14. Emily Wills, Alan Kurdi's Body on the Shore
Visual Regimes of Racial Violence
15. Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Held Helpless in the Breach: On American History X
16. Jared Sexton, The Flash of History: On the Unwatchable in Get Out
17. Alexandra Juhasz, Nothing is Unwatchable for All
18. Michael Boyce Gillespie, Empathy. Complicity.
Spectacularization and Resistance
19. Alok Vaid-Menon, Entertainment Value
20. Alec Butler, Holocausts, Headdresses, Hallowe'en
21. Danielle Peers, Unwitnessable: Outrageous Ableist Impersonations and Unwitnessed Everyday Violence
Part II: Histories and Genres
The Tradition of Provocateurs
22. Asbjrn Grnstad, The Two Unwatchables
23. Akira Lippit, Real Horrorshow
24. Mauro Resmini, Asymmetries of Desire: Sal or the 120 Days of Sodom
25. Mattias Frey, Unstomachable: Irreversible and the Extreme Cinema Tradition
Enduring the Avant-Garde
26. Christophe Wall-Romana, Unwatchability by Choice: Isou's Venom and Eternity
27. KennethBerger, The Refusal of Spectacle: Debord's Howls for Sade
28. J. Hoberman, Warhol's Empire: Unwatched and Unwatchable
29. Nol Carroll, Warhol's Empire
30. Erika Balsom, Watching Paint Dry
Visceral Responses to Horror
31. Vivian Sobchack, "Peek-a-boo": Thoughts on (Maybe Not) Seeing Two Horror Films
32. B. Ruby Rich, Why I Cannot Watch Horror Movies
33. Genevieve Yue, Apotropes
Pornography and the Question of Pleasure
34. Susie Bright, I Am Curious (Butterball)
35. Bill Nichols, At the Threshold to the Void
Archives and the Disintegrating Image
36. Elif Rongen-Kaynaki, Restoring Blood Money
37. Jan Olsson, Negotiating Garbo
38. Philipp Stiasny and Bennet Togler, Twilight of the Dead
Part III: Spectators and Objects
Passionate Aversions
39. Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Sad!": Why I Won't Watch Antichrist
40. Julian Hanich, Oh, Inventiveness! Oh, Imaginativeness! Precious Cinema and Its Discontents: A Rant
41. Nathan Lee, Transforming Nihilism
42. Jeffrey Sconce, The Biopic is an Affront to the Cinema
Tedious Whiteness
43. Jack Halberstam, White Men Behaving Sadly
44. Mel Y. Chen, Two Tables and a Ladder: WCGW?
45. Brandy Monk-Payton, "You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important" or, Why I Can't Watch The Help
Reality Trumpism
46. Lynne Joyrich, TV Trumps
47. Abigail De Kosnik, The Once and Future Hillary: Why I Won't Watch Any Fictionalizations of the 2016 Election
Pedagogy and Campus Politics
48. Ral Perez, Why We Can't Take a Joke
49. Jennifer Malkowski, The Bridge and Unteachable Films
50. Katariina Kyrola, Squirming in the Classroom: Fat Girl and the Ethical Value of Extreme Discomfort
The Triggered Spectator
51. E. Ann Kaplan, What is an "Unwatchable" Film? (With Reference to Amour and Still Alice)
52. Barbara Hammer, Unwatchable Advertising
53. Samuel England, Sects, Fries, and Videotape
54. Rebecca Schneider, Off Watch
Acknowledgments
Filmography
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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| Summary: | "We all have images that we find unwatchable, whether for ethical, political, or sensory-affective reasons. From news coverage of terror attacks to viral videos of police brutality, and from graphic horror films to incendiary artworks that provoke mass boycotts, many of the images in our media culture strike as beyond the pale of consumption. Yet what does it mean to proclaim a media object "unwatchable": disturbing, revolting, poor, tedious, or literally inaccessible? Appealing to a broad academic and general readership, Unwatchable offers multidisciplinary approaches to the vast array of troubling images that circulate in our global visual culture, from cinema, television, and video games through museums and classrooms to laptops, smart phones, and social media platforms. This anthology assembles 60 original essays by scholars, theorists, critics, archivists, curators, artists, and filmmakers who offer their own responses to the broadly suggestive question: What do you find unwatchable? The diverse answers include iconoclastic artworks that have been hidden from view, dystopian images from the political sphere, horror movies, TV advertisements, classic films, and recent award-winners"--
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