Book Cover
DVD video

Title Human terrain : war becomes academic / Udris Film/Oxyopia Productions with the Global Media project and the Watson Institute for International Studies; directed by James Der Derian, David Udris and Michail Udris
Published Oley, PA : Bullfrog Films, 2010

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  355.42 Der/Htw  AVAILABLE
Description 1 videodisc (DVD) (84 min & 57 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in
Summary "'Human terrain' is two stories in one. The first exposes a new Pentagon effort to enlist the best and the brightest in a struggle for hearts and minds. Facing long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military initiates 'Human Terrain Systems', a controversial program that seeks to make cultural awareness the centerpiece of the new counterinsurgency strategy. Designed to embed social scientists with combat troops, the program swiftly comes under attack as a misguided and unethical effort to gather intelligence and target enemies. Gaining rare access to wargames in the Mojave Desert and training exercises at Quantico and Fort Leavenworth, 'Human terrain' takes the viewer into the heart of the war machine and a shadowy collaboration between American academics and the military. The other story is about a brilliant young scholar who leaves the university to join a Human Terrain team. After working as a humanitarian activist in the Western Sahara, Balkans, East Timor and elsewhere, and winning a Marshall Scholarship to study at Oxford, Michael Bhatia returns to Brown University to take up a visiting fellowship. In the course of conducting research on military cultural awareness, he is recruited by the Human Terrain program and eventually embeds with the 82nd Airborne in eastern Afghanistan. On the way to mediate an intertribal dispute, Bhatia is killed when his humvee hits a roadside bomb. War becomes academic, academics go to war, and the personal tragically merges with the political, raising new questions about the ethics, effectiveness, and high costs of counterinsurgency." -- publisher's website
Notes Title from disc surface
Optional English SDH captions
Credits Directed by James Der Derian, David Udris and Michail Udris
Event Originally released as a documentary in the USA 16 April 2010 (Wisconsin Film Festival)
Notes No rating given
DVD format
Available for Deakin University staff and students only
Subject Social sciences and state -- United States.
Cultural awareness -- Study and teaching -- United States.
Social sciences -- Research -- United States.
Tactics -- Social aspects.
Afghan War, 2001- -- Social aspects.
Iraq War, 2003-2011 -- Social aspects.
Genre/Form Documentary films.
Video recordings.
Author Der Derian, James.
Udris, David.
Udris, Michael.
ISBN 9781594589720
1594589720