The preceding article by Hawton and colleagues reporting on a prospective study of adolescents presenting with self-harm to Accident and Emergency departments (A&E) is one of the largest epidemiological studies to examine the long-term outcomes of self-harm in children and adolescents. After a median of 6 years nearly 30% re-presented to A&E with…

Examining Malcolm Browne's photograph of the burning monk as well as appropriations of it by the Ministers' Vietnam Committee, I argue that self-immolation is a powerful rhetorical act that utilizes self-inflicted violence as a means of performing a visual embodiment of violence done by an "other." I assert that the power and resonance…