Abstract

This essay takes a look at contemporary violence, defined as ‘horrorism’, and how it is shaped by an increasingly posthumanist turn in the world’s cultural life. It interrogates the conflation between the cultural machinery of women weapons, varied in different regions and political contexts, eliciting different responses and perspectives, and thereby securing rejection or legitimacy. I draw upon a few academic and philosophical discussions that were prompted by the American response to 9/11 and the wartime abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib that reveal the rise of a demonic ethos within seemingly sanitized societies as those in developed countries and the reactionary brand of terrorism practiced by Jihadist terror groups marked by violation of bodily integrity.