Storytelling and Truth-Telling: Testimonial Narratives in The Road to Guantánamo and Guantánamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’

A. Naomi Paik

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter analyzes two of the earliest cultural productions responding to the prison camps built at Guantánamo under the War on Terror: the docudrama film The Road to Guantánamo (2006) and the verbatim play Guantánamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’ (2004). It discusses testimony as a response to the narratives about the camps offered by the U.S. state, more specifically as a means of countering the characterization of prisoners as anonymous, vicious killers who deserve indefinite detention. Finally, it argues that both of these works expose the camp’s radical depersonalization, while creating new conditions of possibility by elucidating truths that had been systematically withheld from the public.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationGuantánamo and American Empire: The Humanities Respond
EditorsDon E. Walicek, Jessica Adams
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Chapter5
Pages121-147
Number of pages27
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-319-62268-2
ISBN (Print)978-3-319-62267-5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018

Publication series

NameNew Caribbean Studies
ISSN (Print)2691-3011
ISSN (Electronic)2634-5196

Keywords

  • Guantanamo
  • testimony
  • verbatim play
  • docudrama film

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • History
  • Literature and Literary Theory

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