| This dissertation explores the ways in which post-9/11 memorial objects and spaces generate ideological capital to contribute to the attendant myths of wartime nation-building. Memorials are the material product of the state-driven enterprise of re-establishing a system of order that is threatened by the spectacular deconstruction that terror introduces. Order, however illusory, is organized in opposition to the entropic elements held out by the established boundaries of a nation (for a nation---any nation---is constructed through exclusionary practices that separate Us from Them); when a surge invades the national membrane, the act of memorializing is also one of border compensation and restoration. The work of this dissertation is to examine, through close reading and analysis, texts that represent instances of mythic, nationalistic rebuilding: the common thread that ties together popular memorial texts, such as the New York Times publication Portraits 9/11/01 and Jessica Lynch's biography I Am a Soldier, Too, with sites for public grieving (Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and Shanksville) is a unified insistence on a patriotic interpretation of events that have taken place since 9/11. I expect to find the same thematic preferences in these memorial objects towards nation-building ideals (of innocence, righteousness, vengeance) that channeled into the larger myths of American exceptionalism to become foundational concepts for the global War on Terror; these artefacts' selection and construction allow the nation an unproblematic understanding of its past, present, and intended events, and will predictably continue to suppress domestic dissention and provide the conflict with the necessary ideological energy to continue.;Keywords: Memorials, World Trade Center, Pentagon, Shanksville, popular culture, media representation of 9/11, War on Terror, Deleuze and Guattari, exceptionalism, patriotism, New York Times, United 93, Jessica Lynch. |
