Cultural Studies Panel Discussion Addresses Question ‘What is Terror?’

What is Terror? a 2008 Cultural Studies Panel Discussion, is set for Thursday, Oct. 30 from 4 – 5:30 p.m. in the Ortega Hall Reading Room 335. Cataclysmic events change—radically and irrevocably—the way we reside in the world. The 20th century was overshadowed by state terrorism committed under Hitler, shattering as French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard said, “not only lives, buildings, and objects, but also the instruments used to measure earthquakes.”

In different ways, the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington at the beginning of the 21st century created the most recent seismic shifts in the global political landscape. While the spectacular nature of this attack ensured that the story and its pictures remained vividly in the public eye, terrorists managed not only to provoke shock and fear but also demonstrate the vulnerability of a super power. In fact, 9/11 created a level of fear blown out of proportion to the reality of the size, efficiency and resources of the terrorist organization behind it.

The panel discussion examines these phenomena from various disciplinary angles. Panelists engage with the use of terror in late ancient Christian and early Islamic communities, Thomas Sizgorich, History, UC Irvine; the Jacobin terror regime in late 18th century France notion and its transposition into colonialism Raji Vallury, French Studies, UNM; the complications of gender and violence as articulated in ambivalent perceptions of female terrorists Jane Slaughter, History, UNM; and the multitude of national and international definitions of terrorism within and without judicial codifications Elizabeth Rapaport, Law School, UNM.

The event is free and open to the public.

Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu