Jessica Auchter's research focuses on visual politics and culture. She is author of The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations (2014), and dozens of academic articles and edited volume chapters. She is the winner of the Fred Hartmann paper award from the International Studies Association.

1. Visualizing corpse politics; 2. Horrifically graphic: the obscene corpse; 3. The visual politics of ISIS beheadings; 4. Dead terrorists and dead dictators; 5. Proof of death: evidence and atrocity; 6. Displaying the dead body: Some conclusions.

What makes a photograph of a dead body obscene? Auchter's genealogy of obscenity argues that this process is highly political.