Michael F. O’Riley, Colorado College associate professor of French and Italian, has recently published “Cinema in an Age of Terror: North Africa, Victimization, and Colonial History.” The book looks at how cinematic representations of colonial-era victimization inform our understanding of the contemporary age of terror. By examining works representing colonial history and the dynamics of viewership emerging from them, O’Riley reveals how the centrality of victimization in certain cinematic representations of colonial history can help one understand how the desire to occupy the victim’s position is a dangerous and blinding drive that frequently plays into the vision of terrorism.
O’Riley also is the author of “Francophone Culture and the Postcolonial Fascination with Ethnic Crimes and Colonial Aura” and “Postcolonial Haunting and Victimization: Assia Djebar’s New Novels.”
