CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Berghaus, Roisin |
|---|---|
| Title | Excluded Icons: Locating the Femina Sacra in the Green Revolution, the Arab Spring, and the Occupy Movement |
| Summary | The images of Nedā Aghā-Solt ān’ ;s death during the Iranian Green Revolution, Dorli Rainey’s pepper spray attack at the Occupy Seattle protests, and the beating of the “girl in the blue bra” in Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring have been deemed “iconic” by witnesses and sympathizers of these three demonstrations. In spite of the prominence of these stories, however, news reports of the events pay little attention to the women themselves, focusing instead on these women’s passivity at the hands of brutal police and military forces. This paper seeks to ask the question of how, and to what extent, the act of publicizing images of these women’s attacks has in fact silenced their testimonies. By engaging with aesthetic theory, Agamben’s concept of the Muselmann, and Lentin’s and Masters’s femina sacra, this essay aims to identify and analyze both the dominant narratives of these women and their societies that are reinforced through the perpetuation of particular still images of their brutalizations in America print media, and the enduring images that remain in the memories of locals present in the cities at the time the incidents occurred. This project ultimately demonstrates that the very inclusion of images of attacks on these three women has marginalized their testimonies as larger narratives about women’s fragility and passivity, as well as the violent police forces, regimes and cultures of their respective countries, have prevailed. |
| Supervisor | Akcali, Emel |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/oconnell_roisin.pdf |
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