Abstract

The 2008 Greek riots were dramatized as a discourse of phainesthai: the violence that describes them manifested itself in the proliferation of a number of interrelated constructs, such as apháneia, diapháneia, apokálypsis, kálypsis, koukoulofóroi, and gnostoí-ágnostoi. Much of the discussion here focuses on the function of the hood (koukoúla) and, more specifically, the implementation of a law in Greece to outlaw hoods during demonstrations. Such phenomenological exploration opens up a space where the relationship between (in)visibility and violence can be examined in the framework of what Slavoj Žižek calls "objective violence." Against the background of a wider theoretical discussion on the ethics of violence (Arendt, Benjamin, Foucault, Critchley, Žižek), the 2008 events are also considered in relation to the French riots of 2005 in an attempt to map out their revelatory force: i.e. the violence and the tensions they revealed.

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