Changing Affective Economies of Masculine Machineries and Military Masculinities? From Ernst Jünger to Shannen Rossmiller

Abstract

This article discusses the affective economy and changing representations of military masculinities with regard to transforming gendered, machinic and digital bodies of integrated (wo)man-machine systems. The self-mechanised ideal of the soldier body that the German writer Ernst Jünger came to formulate has been configurative for generations of military masculinities. Jünger’s work speaks directly to an affective understanding and embodied history of masculinity in the military. However, in the current times of virtual warfare, military masculinities are perhaps changing? As war is going cyber and technical wizardry is as valued as the brute strength of self-mechanised bodies, the body of the soldier is being destabilised. The case of Shannen Rossmiller is here working as a contrastive case. Rossmiller is FBI’s most regarded cyber counter-terrorist. She seems to inhabit and perform certain forms of masculinities better than her male colleagues.

Keywords

• military masculinities
• bodies
• machinic
• digital
• affective economy