Writing of Violence in the Middle East

Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh is Assistant Professor of World Literature at New Jersey City University, USA. He is the author of The Chaotic Imagination: New literature and Philosophy of the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2010).

• Series Foreword / Preface: Violence, East/West / Acknowledgements / 0. Zero-World Consciousness / 1. Threat: Writings of Betrayal / 2. Annihilation: Writings of Cruelty / 3. Sharpening: Writings of Evil / 4. Deception: Writings of Midnight / 5. Rage: Writings of Overthrow / 6. Assassination: Writings of War / 6.5. Interlude (of the factions, of the barriers) / Conclusion (Of Those Who Have Become Jagged): Reckonings of an Eastern Violence / Bibliography / Index

Perhaps the major merit of Inflictions is not only the strength of its argument, but it is more the book’s relentless counter canonical approach — a timely political-methodological intervention which boldly contemplates the inscriptions of real violence as integral to the very movement of absolute laceration of writing itself and the ultimate depleting of the metaphysics of presence … From this multi-dimensional perception of how we ought to begin reading violence, from this deferred universe, the ideas of post-apocalyptic visions emerge and unfold. By all means, one can only hope that this book excites more inquiries peeling through more engravings-of-thought contained in concealed poetic, fictional, and philosophical palimpsests waiting for their moments to emerge.