Putting Mourning to Work

Making Sense of 9/11

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2352016
AutoresK Engle (0009-0004-4900-398X, University of Windsor, autor correspondente), Karen J Engle (University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada)
Ano2007
Volume24
Fascículo1
Páginas61-88
Data de publicação2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTheory Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0263276407071570
OpenAlexW2089900149
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas23

This article investigates the work of mourning following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Combining discussions of mourning, kitsch and sentimentality, I examine the perverse transformation of grief into patriotic nationalism. Linking Freud's description of mourning as work with Derrida's articulation of grief as 'a work working at its own unproductivity', I explore how grief has been paired with icons of American nostalgia, such as Norman Rockwell, as well as kitschy souvenirs from Ground Zero vendors, and, through this pairing, been transformed into a motive force for war. A central part of this operation, I argue, is the process of identification with the traumatic event. Identification, what Freud describes as a 'binding force', takes place across diverse fields - from White House speeches, to kitsch memorabilia made available immediately following the attacks. Identification with the event enables identification with the nation - an operation immediately reifying the official rhetoric of 'Us against Them' propounded by President Bush and his advisers. As grief over 9/11 is transformed into a perpetual rationale for war, that day becomes a new origin conveniently obliterating all that came before regarding the history of US nation-building and its own brand of terrorism

Aesthetics · Art · Criminology · Grief · Identification (biology · Kitsch · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sentimentality · Sociology · Terrorism · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior · Psychology · Rhetoric and Communication Studies