John Roosa
Biographic Data
| ID | 237377 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Roosa |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Roosa |
| SIGNATURE | ROOSA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Workers and Democracy
Buried Histories
The Look of Silence
The State of Knowledge about an Open Secret
In a scene in the genre-bending documentary filmThe Act of Killing(2012), a journalist, Soaduon Siregar, claims to have a sudden insight while standing in a film studio. Having just watched two executioners reenact their deeds of 1965-66 before a camera, he realizes why he had never known that they had garroted hundreds of detainees when he was working with them in the same building. His old friends had been so "smooth" (he used the English word)…
Separatism, Civil War, and Genocide
The Act of Killing
Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer
The film-maker Joshua Oppenheimer discusses his film The Act of Killing with John Roosa. Oppenheimer explains how he came to focus on the story of one executioner who participated in the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia and how he came to film the perpetrators re-enacting the violence. The film, Oppenheimer notes, should be seen as an intervention into a climate of impunity rather than an attempt to document the events of 1965–1966
Dan Slater, Ordering power
In this feature we highlight a recently launched book. We invite specialists in the field to comment on the book, and we invite the author to respond to their comments. In this issue we focus on Dan Slater's Ordering power: Contentious politics and authoritarian. Those invited to comment on the book are William Case, Gerry van Klinken and John Roosa. Registered readers may participate in the debate
East Timor’s Truth Commission
Finalising the nation
The Indonesian military sees itself as the guarantor of national unity, the state's last line of defence against separatist movements. This paper argues that the military's methods for maintaining national unity have been counterproductive. Its counter‐insurgency wars in Aceh and Papua have exacerbated the sense of alienation from Indonesia that the people in these provinces have felt. In this post‐Suharto era of political reform, the military ha…
When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn
This essay evaluates the changing research agendas of Subaltern Studies, an influential series of books on South Asian history that began in 1982. The essay criticizes the original research agenda as articulated by the series editor, Ranajit Guha, and the subsequent agenda proposed by several members of the Subaltern Studies collective. Guha initially proposed that studies of colonial India understand power in terms of unmediated relationships be…
How Does a Truth Commission Find Out What the Truth Is? The Case of East Timor's Cavr
has a formidable name to live up to, especially in this age when many people dare not use the word outside of quotation marks. The name itself proclaims a faith in the possibility of finding out the about past events. It was the Chilean government that first began the practice of using the term when it established a body in 1990 to investigate the human committed by the Pinochet regime. The term set a trend for the 1990s as the governments of El …
East Timor's Truth Commission Introduction to Pacific Affairs Special Forum
Pretext for Mass Murder
Passive revolution meets peasant revolution
An explanation of how the struggles by villagers in the region of Telangana in the 1940s evolved into the largest rural armed conflict in twentieth-century India, requires an understanding not just of property relations in the region (the focus of most previous studies of the revolt), but also of the nationalist movement there, and the political conjuncture at the time of Indian independence. As much a nationalist mobilization as a revolt over la…
India's environment
This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India, by Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, 274 pages, £4.95 pb. Nature, Culture and Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia, David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, 376 pages, £19.50
Literary Approach to a Complex Relationship
Feeding violence
The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics, by Vandana Shiva, London: Zed Books, 1991, 264 pages, hb £29.95, pb £10.95
Peoples' Resistance to the Market
Passive revolution meets peasant revolution
An explanation of how the struggles by villagers in the region of Telangana in the 1940s evolved into the largest rural armed conflict in twentieth-century India, requires an understanding not just of property relations in the region (the focus of most previous studies of the revolt), but also of the nationalist movement there, and the political conjuncture at the time of Indian independence. As much a nationalist mobilization as a revolt over la…
The State of Knowledge about an Open Secret
In a scene in the genre-bending documentary filmThe Act of Killing(2012), a journalist, Soaduon Siregar, claims to have a sudden insight while standing in a film studio. Having just watched two executioners reenact their deeds of 1965-66 before a camera, he realizes why he had never known that they had garroted hundreds of detainees when he was working with them in the same building. His old friends had been so "smooth" (he used the English word)…
Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer
The film-maker Joshua Oppenheimer discusses his film The Act of Killing with John Roosa. Oppenheimer explains how he came to focus on the story of one executioner who participated in the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia and how he came to film the perpetrators re-enacting the violence. The film, Oppenheimer notes, should be seen as an intervention into a climate of impunity rather than an attempt to document the events of 1965–1966
Finalising the nation
The Indonesian military sees itself as the guarantor of national unity, the state's last line of defence against separatist movements. This paper argues that the military's methods for maintaining national unity have been counterproductive. Its counter‐insurgency wars in Aceh and Papua have exacerbated the sense of alienation from Indonesia that the people in these provinces have felt. In this post‐Suharto era of political reform, the military ha…
When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn
This essay evaluates the changing research agendas of Subaltern Studies, an influential series of books on South Asian history that began in 1982. The essay criticizes the original research agenda as articulated by the series editor, Ranajit Guha, and the subsequent agenda proposed by several members of the Subaltern Studies collective. Guha initially proposed that studies of colonial India understand power in terms of unmediated relationships be…
How Does a Truth Commission Find Out What the Truth Is? The Case of East Timor's Cavr
has a formidable name to live up to, especially in this age when many people dare not use the word outside of quotation marks. The name itself proclaims a faith in the possibility of finding out the about past events. It was the Chilean government that first began the practice of using the term when it established a body in 1990 to investigate the human committed by the Pinochet regime. The term set a trend for the 1990s as the governments of El …
Feeding violence
The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics, by Vandana Shiva, London: Zed Books, 1991, 264 pages, hb £29.95, pb £10.95
Peoples' Resistance to the Market
Literary Approach to a Complex Relationship
India's environment
This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India, by Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, 274 pages, £4.95 pb. Nature, Culture and Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia, David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, 376 pages, £19.50
Passive revolution meets peasant revolution
An explanation of how the struggles by villagers in the region of Telangana in the 1940s evolved into the largest rural armed conflict in twentieth-century India, requires an understanding not just of property relations in the region (the focus of most previous studies of the revolt), but also of the nationalist movement there, and the political conjuncture at the time of Indian independence. As much a nationalist mobilization as a revolt over la…
Pretext for Mass Murder
East Timor’s Truth Commission
Finalising the nation
The Indonesian military sees itself as the guarantor of national unity, the state's last line of defence against separatist movements. This paper argues that the military's methods for maintaining national unity have been counterproductive. Its counter‐insurgency wars in Aceh and Papua have exacerbated the sense of alienation from Indonesia that the people in these provinces have felt. In this post‐Suharto era of political reform, the military ha…
When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn
This essay evaluates the changing research agendas of Subaltern Studies, an influential series of books on South Asian history that began in 1982. The essay criticizes the original research agenda as articulated by the series editor, Ranajit Guha, and the subsequent agenda proposed by several members of the Subaltern Studies collective. Guha initially proposed that studies of colonial India understand power in terms of unmediated relationships be…
How Does a Truth Commission Find Out What the Truth Is? The Case of East Timor's Cavr
has a formidable name to live up to, especially in this age when many people dare not use the word outside of quotation marks. The name itself proclaims a faith in the possibility of finding out the about past events. It was the Chilean government that first began the practice of using the term when it established a body in 1990 to investigate the human committed by the Pinochet regime. The term set a trend for the 1990s as the governments of El …
East Timor's Truth Commission Introduction to Pacific Affairs Special Forum
Dan Slater, Ordering power
In this feature we highlight a recently launched book. We invite specialists in the field to comment on the book, and we invite the author to respond to their comments. In this issue we focus on Dan Slater's Ordering power: Contentious politics and authoritarian. Those invited to comment on the book are William Case, Gerry van Klinken and John Roosa. Registered readers may participate in the debate
The Act of Killing
Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer
The film-maker Joshua Oppenheimer discusses his film The Act of Killing with John Roosa. Oppenheimer explains how he came to focus on the story of one executioner who participated in the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia and how he came to film the perpetrators re-enacting the violence. The film, Oppenheimer notes, should be seen as an intervention into a climate of impunity rather than an attempt to document the events of 1965–1966
Separatism, Civil War, and Genocide
The State of Knowledge about an Open Secret
In a scene in the genre-bending documentary filmThe Act of Killing(2012), a journalist, Soaduon Siregar, claims to have a sudden insight while standing in a film studio. Having just watched two executioners reenact their deeds of 1965-66 before a camera, he realizes why he had never known that they had garroted hundreds of detainees when he was working with them in the same building. His old friends had been so "smooth" (he used the English word)…
The Look of Silence
Buried Histories
Workers and Democracy
Political science (13 works) · Law (11 works) · History (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · History (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Art (4 works)