WSU Vancouver Hosts Talk on Rationalizing Abuse, Torture in the War on Terror

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Washington State University sociology faculty members Greg Hooks and Clayton Mosher will appear on campus next week for a presentation about their upcoming article “Outrages Against Personal Dignity: Rationalizing Abuse and Torture in the War on Terror.”

Hooks and Mosher will speak at 7 p.m. April 8 in Student Services Building Room 129 on the campus of Washington State University Vancouver.

Scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal, Social Forces, their article will focus on the demonization and dehumanization of the “enemy” and instructions contained in U.S. Central Intelligence Agency training manuals. Both the article and the authors’ presentation here will examine the historical roots of torture by American military personnel and how such torture has spread in the current “war on terror.”

Hooks and Mosher will also discuss issues related to the ultimate responsibility for these acts, and the lack of accountability by senior government officials.

Hooks is a professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at WSU in Pullman and a Senior Justice Fellow at the Soros Institute. He has conducted extensive research on the military industrial complex, environmental justice, and the economic impacts of prisons. Hooks has published several books and articles, including recent publications in the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Social Science Quarterly.

Mosher is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Washington State University Vancouver. His research interests include the interactions between race, crime, and criminal justice outcomes, inequality in the criminal justice system, and the sociology of drugs and drug policy. He has published several books and articles, including recent publications in Social Science Quarterly and Criminal Justice Policy Review.

The presentation is sponsored by the WSU Vancouver Center for Social and Environmental Justice, which acts to fulfill WSU’s land grant mission by engaging community capacities to address poverty, inequality, discrimination and unequally born environmental dangers. The center supports interdisciplinary approaches to positive cultural, political social and environmental change.

WSU Vancouver is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave., east of the 134th Street exit from either I-5 or I-205. Parking rules are enforced Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Parking is available in the blue lot for $1.75 or at parking meters.