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Reading 9/11 Through The Holocaust In Philip Roth’S The Plot Against America And Art Spiegelman’S In The Shadow Of No Towers, Stella Setka
Reading 9/11 Through The Holocaust In Philip Roth’S The Plot Against America And Art Spiegelman’S In The Shadow Of No Towers, Stella Setka
Re-visioning Terrorism
This essay argues that Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America and Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of New Towers open up new spaces for reading the trauma of 9/11 not simply as the tragic story of a single day in 2001, but as a traumatic event that shares referents with other catastrophes in history, most notably the Holocaust. Further, the author demonstrates that these works are more concerned with the politicization of 9/11 than they are with the terrorist attacks themselves.
Historicizing The Present In 9/11 Fiction, Todd Kuchta
Historicizing The Present In 9/11 Fiction, Todd Kuchta
Re-visioning Terrorism
Reconfiguring the debate on the historical efficacy of postmodern fiction, novels inspired by 9/11 seek to view the present itself as history. McEwan’s Saturday, DeLillo’s Falling Man, and Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist attempt to move beyond the view of history-as-text. Rather than evoking “the presence of the past,” they present characters trying to situate themselves in a new historical reality. Žižek’s account of Lacan illuminates DeLillo’s attempt to historicize the present, while McEwan gestures toward Foucault’s view of the present as exit. Only Hamid engages the historical potential of the present.
The Privilege Of Ambivalence: Saturday’S Henry Perowne On The ‘War On Terror’, Jax Lee Gardner
The Privilege Of Ambivalence: Saturday’S Henry Perowne On The ‘War On Terror’, Jax Lee Gardner
Re-visioning Terrorism
This essay considers the relation between personal privilege (class, race, nationality, sex) and political ambivalence toward the Iraq war as it manifests in the protagonist of Ian McEwan’s Saturday. Henry Perowne “feels culpable somehow, but helpless too” in his shifting opinions of the coming invasion. Throughout the text we are shown Henry’s multiple perspectives regarding Iraq. Such ambivalence is, in itself, a form of complicity in war. Henry neither tangibly opposes the actions of the government (as the protesters do), nor does he consider sacrificing any of his creature comforts in support of the war (as the soldiers do). I …
Female (Em)Bodied Justice: Terrorism, Self-Sacrifice, And The Joint Primacy Of Gender And Nationality, Renee Lee Gardner
Female (Em)Bodied Justice: Terrorism, Self-Sacrifice, And The Joint Primacy Of Gender And Nationality, Renee Lee Gardner
Re-visioning Terrorism
In The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi asserts that instead of processing the events of 9/11 – what they might reveal about our culture, how we might thoughtfully grieve them and respond to those who perpetrated them – Americans reverted to a 1950s style domesticity, with the media representing men as heroic rescuers and women as victims of terrorists, in need of rescuing. This is ironic in that the majority of that day’s casualties were men, and the attacks themselves were perpetrated within our commercial and governmental centers. Yet much of the literary fiction that has emerged from 9/11 can …
Nationalism, Alterity, And Cognitive Studies In Mohsin Hamid, Laila Halaby, And Jess Walte, Aaron Derosa
Nationalism, Alterity, And Cognitive Studies In Mohsin Hamid, Laila Halaby, And Jess Walte, Aaron Derosa
Re-visioning Terrorism
This essay explores the metaphoric construction of the terrorist Other in 9/11 scholarship and literature. While academics demand an ethical engagement with Arab and Muslim Americans, they unwittingly reify a binary distinction of Other-Same that triangulates terrorist identity through ordinary Arabs and Muslims. Looking at Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land and Walter’s The Zero, I suggest an alternative metaphor for terrorism not as a regional or religious population, but as an internal impulse that dwells within us all. Doing so more ethically and productively aligns terrorism with the threat to global security in the post-9/11 era.
No More Tall Buildings: American Superhero Comics And The Shadow Of 9/11, Mauricio Castro
No More Tall Buildings: American Superhero Comics And The Shadow Of 9/11, Mauricio Castro
Re-visioning Terrorism
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