Trakl was the master of transfiguration and poetic enigma. His poetry uses a very specific number of colours (black, purple, blue), strikingly simple rhyme and – at times obstinate – repetition to unmatched effects. The expressive quality of his poetry never amounts to dogmatic expressionism but relates, and reflects, the deeper qualities of introspection. It tries to identify the very roots of expression in the troubled human existence. His poetry originated in feelings of guilt (often connected with the biographical fact that he had induced his sister to the misuse of drugs) and utter desolation. We have seen already that to him the self-destruction of occidental culture was a certainty years before the outbreak of World War One. This chapter discusses whether it can be argued that Trakl’s poetry reflects, to a certain extent, an anticipation of the horrors that became manifest and unbearable to him already in the very first weeks of this European tragedy with disastrous global implications.

Chapter 7 presents the third of the three case studies: Killing the Individual Human Being via Drones. Here I look at targeted killings and the growing use of drones in this practice. The chapter offers a detailed discussion of the predominantly legal and ethical debate. In doing so, the chapter demonstrates the relevance of an analysis guided by insights from IR theory. But it also discusses legal questions concerning International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law. The case study engages in detail with the general discourse on drone strikes and targeted killings and provides an in-depth analysis of specific strike types and drone strikes. The analysis demonstrates how the individual human being appears as an innocent civilian who should not be killed (if possible) or as a guilty terrorist who should be killed.

This chapter acts as a counter-point to the previous one, in that it also deals with how social actors are represented, but this time we look at those who are viewed as part of the out-group as opposed to the in-group, considering how the in-group use language to carry out ‘othering’ of the out-group. We examine how strategies of collectivisation, stereotyping, dehumanisation and separation are linguistically realised by examining the following keywords: kufr, disbelief, kuffar, disbeliever, America and evil.

The period from 1930 to 1990 saw an extraordinary development in the use of Gothic and horror to tell narratives about war and combat, mainly for two main purposes: first, to reveal and accentuate the horrific damage caused to bodies by combat, usually in order to denounce and demystify war; and second, figuratively to depict the less visible ways in which combat and war violence affect soldiers and civilians on a psychological level, especially through fear and trauma. A third form of War Gothic involves the dehumanisation of enemies by portraying them as monsters. All three forms are concerned with the ways in which war robs humans of their humanity, though the first two are largely critical of war while the third is basically a form of militaristic jingoism. This chapter focuses on a selection of texts from the first Hollywood zombie film, White Zombie (1932), to Jacob’s Ladder (1990), focusing especially on the Second World War and its veterans, and the literature and cinema of the Vietnam War. It ends with a brief discussion of War Gothic in the film and video game representations of the First Gulf War.

This chapter shifts from an analysis of the governing practices through which death and vulnerability are produced and normalised, to an exploration of the ways in which such practices are grounded in racialised processes of dehumanisation. Specifically, it considers the ways in which pervasive processes of animalisation, as well as the pervasiveness of death and vulnerability, relate to contemporary and longer-standing debates surrounding human dignity. It is in a context marked by what Chapter 2 referred to as the toleration of biophysical violence that an appeal to the dignity of people on the move has been mobilised with particular potency. This chapter considers the potential of human dignity as a critical conceptual framework for contestations over what it means to be human, while also reflecting on the ways in which the concept’s mobilisation by various governing authorities further marks the toleration of biophysical violence and perpetuates the normalisation of death and vulnerability. Situating the concept within a modern European tradition of humanism, the chapter shows how human dignity invokes a longer-standing tension between the hierarchical differentiation of worthy and unworthy people on the one hand, and the universal levelling of all people as equal on the other. By exploring the ways in which such tensions play out through racialised practices of governing migration that dehumanise people on the move, the chapter highlights the ongoing significance of a modern European tradition of humanism to conceptions of dignity mobilised during the so-called Mediterranean migration crisis. Concluding Part I of the book by drawing attention to the failure of governing practices to fully master various unruly social and physical forces, the chapter suggests that the ‘Mediterranean migration crisis’ might be understood as nothing less than a breakdown of modern European humanism itself.