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English 5010  Remediating 9/11: Analyzing Contemporary Narratives of Fear and Tragedy Across Genre

This course will study narratives of the past decade as cultural artifacts directly (or indirectly) influenced by the events surrounding the September 11^th terrorist attacks. We will begin by studying texts that attempt to re-present the events of that day. Texts studied will include novels such as Don Dellilo’s Falling Man and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, as well as films such as Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center (2006) and Paul Greengrass’s United 93 (2006). Next, we will analyze production trends of the past ten years as possible reactions to 9/11: the resurrected popularity of the dystopian genre in young adult literature; the abundance of post-apocalyptic narratives in novels, films, and video games; the patriotism/anti-patriotism music wars; and the increased visibility (and political efficacy) of the infotainment genre. Key texts for discussion may include: Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Susan Collins’s Hunger Games, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Albert and Allen Hughes’s Book of Eli (2010), and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Students will apply the work of affect theorists (Richard Grusin, Brian Massumi, Sylvan Tomkins, among others) to these various texts to study how these works may be manufacturing, manipulating, and/or working through post-9/11 cultural concerns.

Course work will likely include: an annotated bibliography, an explication piece, a mid-term essay, a seminar paper, and in-class presentations (group and individual).