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.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Véronique BRAGARD, Christophe DONY and Warren ROSENBERG

Part I: Comics

Covering 9/11: The New Yorker, Trauma Kitsch, and Popular Memory
Thimothy KRAUSE

Spandex Agonistes: Superhero Comics Confront the War on Terror
Matthew J. COSTELLO

“Whose Side Are You On?” The Allegorization of 9/11 in Marvel’s Civil War
Stephan PACKARD

Part II: Literature

September 11 and Cold War Nostalgia
Aaron DEROSA

Don DeLillo’s Falling Man: Countering Post–9/11 Narratives of Heroic Masculinity
Magali CORNIER MICHAEL

Misplaced Anxieties: Violence and Trauma in Ian McEwan’s Saturday
Ulrike TANCKE

The Mediated Trauma of September 11, 2001, in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and David Foster Wallace’s “The Suffering Channel”
Marc OXOBY

Part III: Performance

Terror and Mismemory: Resignifying September 11 in World Trade Center and United 93
Gerry CANAVAN

From Flying Man to Falling Man: 9/11 Discourse in Superman Returns and Batman Begins
Dan HASSLER-FOREST

Authenticating the Reel: Realism, Simulation, and Trauma in United 93
Frances PHEASANT-KELLY

Connecting in the Aftermath: Trauma, Performance, and Catharsis in the Plays of Anne Nelson
James M. CHERRY

About the Contributors

Index