[Media-watch] Call for papers

[Deirdre Kevin]

Call for papers:

full info here:  http://www.banal-militarism.de/


Banal Militarism: Making the military and warlike habitus ordinary

"In the past the phenomena of militarism often has been discussed at the
example of Prussian Germany and
Japan. Whilst this ‚classic militarism' usually refers to a societal
situation in which the military as an institution
 and/or military categories of thinking had an outstanding position, and
is seen, in such a way, as a
 marginal manifestation nowadays, the military  nevertheless plays a
considerable role in most societies -
by consuming financial resources, in public debates and  in the daily
life of many people.

Though, a term is missing that gets to the heart of this situation in
which the existence of the military and its
embeddedness in the society is mostly seen as self-evident. As the
sociologist Michael Billig has stated
gaps in political language are rarely innocent. Following his
considerations to call the everyday acts and
discourses by which the nationstates are reproduced as ‚nations' we hold
the term ‚banal militarism' suitable to
 grasp the corresponding multifarious mechanisms that  legitimize the
existence of the military, its appearance in
 public, its consumption of public finances, and finally its
deployment. It is these unspectacular processes and
 dimensions of a ‚banal militarism', often conveyed by the  media and
communicative, that the international and
 interdisciplinary conference is devoted to in an exploratory approach."

--
Deirdre Kevin
Project Manager
European Institute for the Media
Zollhof 2a, D-40221 Duesseldorf
Germany / Tel:  +49 211 90104 75/ Fax: +49 211 90104 56
http://www.eim.org