Cultural melancholia : US trauma discourses before and after 9/11 / by Christina Cavedon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cavedon, Christina, author.

Series:

Costerus ; new ser., v. 212.

Costerus, 0165-9618 ; new series, volume 212

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001, in literature.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks (2001) in literature.

Melancholy--Social aspects--United States.

Melancholy.

Melancholy--Social aspects.

United States.

Physical Description:

x, 414 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill Rodopi, [2015]

Summary:

In Cultural Melancholia: US Trauma Discounts Before and After 9/11 Christina Cavedon frames her examination of 9/11 fiction, especially Jay McInerney's The Good Life and Don DeLillo's Falling Man, with a thorough discussion of what US reactions to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 disclose about American culture. Offering a comparative reading of pre- and post-9/11 literary, public, and academic discourses, she deconstructs the still commonly held belief that cultural repercussions of the attacks primarily testify to a cultural trauma in the wake of the collectively witnessed media event. She innovatively reinterprets discourses to be symptomatic of a malaise which had afflicted American culture already prior to 9/11 and can best be approached with melancholia as an analytical concept. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Theortzations of Melancholia 41

Chapter 2 Trauma Studies in the Medico-Psychiatric Field 79

Chapter 3 Theortzations of Cultural Trauma in Relation to Cultural Melancholia 99

Chapter 4 Cultural Narratives Activated By the 9/11 Attacks 157

Chapter 5 White Middle Class Melancholia in Jay McInerney's Fiction 201

Chapter 6 Postmodern Melancholia and the Fantasy of the Tuché In Don DeLillo's Pre-9/11 Novels 257

Chapter 7 Falling Man's Escape into Hyperreality 323.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789004305960

9004305963

OCLC:

917361339