This thesis explores the intersection of phenomenological, bio-political and ethical facets of spectatorship in relation to female suffering and gendered violence in contemporary film produced in Europe (mainly drawing on examples from France) and the United States. I argue that the visceral and affective cinematic embodiment of female pain plays a vital role in determining the political and ethical relationships of spectators to the images onscreen. Drawing on phenomenological theory, feminist ontology and ethics (primarily the work of Hélène Cixous), as well as the ethical philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy, I establish the bio-political and ethical positions and responsibilities of spectators who encounter female suffering in film. In doing so, I highlight the ways in which adopting a phenomenological approach to theorizing and practicing spectatorial perception can open up new areas of ethical engagement with (and fields of vision within) controversial modes of filmmaking such as European New Extremism and body horror. I analyze how suffering female bodies embody contemporary corporeal, socio-political and ethical problematics in what I define as the “cinema of exposure.” I argue that through processes of psychosomatic disturbance, films within the cinema of exposure encourage spectators to employ a haptic, corporeally situated vision when watching women experience pain and trauma onscreen. I explore how encounters with these suffering female bodies impact spectators as political and ethical subjects, contributing a crucial bio-political dimension to existing work on spectatorial engagement with cinematic affect. The goal of this thesis is to highlight the continued importance of feminist critiques of gendered and sexualized violence in film by attending to the emotional, physical, political and ethical resonances of mediated female suffering. This thesis contributes productively to those areas of film and media studies, women's studies and feminist philosophy that explore the construction of female subjectivity within contemporary culture.

Es ist das zentrale Anliegen der Dissertation, den Zusammenhang der Konditionierung von politischen Konflikten und gesellschaftlicher Ordnung mit den Mitteln der soziologischen Systemtheorie zu untersuchen. Zu diesem Zweck werden zentrale Begriffe wie "Konflikt", “Gewalt“, "Politik“ und „Gesellschaft“ reformuliert. Die Diskussion bleibt in dieser Absicht nicht auf die Entwicklungen der modernen Gesellschaft beschränkt, sondern bezieht auch historisch vorhergehende Gesellschaftsformen mit ein. Schon für vormoderne Gesellschaften ist ein systematischer Zusammenhang von Konfliktkonditionierung und der Form sozialer Differenzierung festzustellen. Konflikte und ihre Konditionierung sind mit den so gewonnenen Mitteln als ein spezifischer Aspekt der sozialen Evolution zu verstehen. Im Anschluss wird der Begriff der Pazifizierung politischer Konflikte in Bezug zur funktionalen Differenzierung der modernen Gesellschaft gesetzt. Das soll zeigen, wie weit die moderne Gesellschaft ihre eigenen Strukturen mit der Konditionierung von politischen Konflikten determiniert. Über den evolutionär kontingenten Prozess der Pazifizierung politischer Konflikte sollen Chancen und Grenzen der Realisierung funktionaler Differenzierung identifizierbar werden.

This thesis analyzes the origins and development of conceptions of the relationship between violence and politics characteristic of twentieth century fascist thought. It critiques existing approaches to fascism and fascist ideology in the interdisciplinary field of fascist studies and proposes and employs an alternate approach which centres and emphasizes the flexibility and mutability of fascist thought and denies that any particular complex of beliefs or concepts can be said to constitute an ‘essence’ or ‘heart’ of fascist ideology. Morphological studies are offered of four discursive traditions in fascist and fascist-adjacent thought with respect to violence and politics: German military theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the ‘new’ French nationalism of the fin-de-siècle; the genre of ‘future warfare’ around and after the First World War; and the work of Ernst Jünger and Carl Schmitt. The thesis concludes with some consideration of the continuities and discontinuities made apparent in the morphological studies, an argument that those results vindicate the initial framing, and some avenues for extending them into areas of concrete contemporary relevance. / Graduate