Cultural Melancholia - US Trauma Discourses Before and After 9/11

In Cultural Melancholia: US Trauma Discourses 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 re-interprets 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.

About the author

Dr. Christina Cavedon works as research project coordinator at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and is a self-employed translator, editor, and research manager. She has a background in English Literature and Linguistics, Film Studies, and Art History.

Product details

• Authors: Christina Cavedon
• Publisher: Brill
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 27.08.2015
• EAN: 9789004305960
• ISBN: 978-90-04-30596-0
• No. of pages: 424
• Dimensions: 161 mm x 241 mm x 27 mm
• Weight: 742 g
• Series: Costerus New
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies