Laliv Melamed
This lecture looks at three contemporary grassroots video productions related to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In each of these videos an address is made by Israeli soldiers or on their behalf, pertaining to the politics of military conflict, channeled through ubiquitous media outlets. I will look at a video made by The Family Forum, a joint organization of Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families; video testimonials produced by the Israeli ex-soldiers’ organization Breaking the Silence; and a number of media productions done as part of the campaign for the release of the captured soldier Gilaad Shalit. Drawing on the writings of Emanuel Levinas, philosopher Judith Butler reads into mediated faces a certain political ethics of loss. Accounting for media’s modes of production and circulation and the real or symbolic currencies of representation, I argue that these are not about the ethics of the face, but the political economy of the address.
Laliv Melamed ist PostDoc im Graduiertenkolleg "Konfigurationen des Films" an der GU
