HENA03926U English - Free topic 6: Literature after 9/11 (Exam form B)

Volume 2014/2015
Content

In the immediate wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11 2001, a number of British and American writers including Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Don DeLillo, and Jay McInerney wrote essays about the event. Echoing Philip Roth’s famous declaration (in 1961) that American reality has outstripped fiction, some writers struggled with a feeling that fiction had been rendered impotent by the historical scale and mass-mediated spectacle of the terrorist attacks; others insisted on the importance of formulating “counter-narratives” (DeLillo) to offer an alternative vision of the world to that defined (or destroyed) by the terrorists.

 

In the years since the terrorist attacks, and especially since 2005, numerous writers have written stories and novels focusing upon or incorporating the events of 9/11. Others have turned their attention to aspects of the new world which 9/11 is seen and said to have brought into being, directly or indirectly: the “war on terror”; the “clash of civilizations”; anti.-Americanism; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the related anti-war marches and demonstrations. In this course, we will consider a range of Anglophone literature by writers from the U.S., Britain, and Pakistan—fiction and non-fiction, novels and short stories, graphic adaptations and essays—that responds in various ways to the post-9/11 world.

  • Category
  • Hours
  • Lectures
  • 28
  • Preparation
  • 176,75
  • Total
  • 204,75