Portraying 9/11

Commentators and artists attempting to represent the events of September 11, 2001, struggle to create meaning in the face of such powerful experiences. This collection of essays offers critical insights into the discourses that shape the memory of 9/11 in the narrative genres of comics, literature, film, and theatre. It examines historical, political, cultural, and personal meanings of the disaster and its aftermath through critical discussions of Marvel and New Yorker comics, American and British novels, Hollywood films, and the plays of Anne Nelson.

Véronique Bragard is associate professor in comparative literature at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

Christophe Dony combines teaching and research activities at the Université de Liège, Belgium, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literatures.

Warren Rosenberg is professor of English and chair of the English department at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Edited by Véronique Bragard, Christophe Dony and Warren Rosenberg

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 184
Bibliographic Info: 4 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-5950-6
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8896-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii
Introduction
VÉRONIQUE BRAGARD, CHRISTOPHE DONY and WARREN ROSENBERG      1

Part I: Comics
Covering 9/11: The New Yorker, Trauma Kitsch, and Popular Memory
TIMOTHY KRAUSE      11
Spandex Agonistes: Superhero Comics Confront the War on Terror
MATTHEW J. COSTELLO      30
“Whose Side Are You On?” The Allegorization of 9/11 in Marvel’s Civil War
STEPHAN PACKARD      44

Part II: Literature
September 11 and Cold War Nostalgia
AARON DEROSA      58
Don DeLillo’s Falling Man: Countering Post–9/11 Narratives of Heroic Masculinity
MAGALI CORNIER MICHAEL      73
Misplaced Anxieties: Violence and Trauma in Ian McEwan’s Saturday
ULRIKE TANCKE      89
The Mediated Trauma of September 11, 2001, in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and David Foster Wallace’s “The Suffering Channel”
MARC OXOBY      102

Part III: Performance
Terror and Mismemory: Resignifying September 11 in World Trade Center and United      93
GERRY CANAVAN      118
From Flying Man to Falling Man: 9/11 Discourse in Superman Returns and Batman Begins
DAN HASSLER-FOREST      134
Authenticating the Reel: Realism, Simulation, and Trauma in United      93
FRANCES PHEASANT-KELLY      147
Connecting in the Aftermath: Trauma, Performance, and Catharsis in the Plays of Anne Nelson
JAMES M. CHERRY      160

About the Contributors      173
Index      175