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9/11: The Culture of Commemoration

Author(s) : David Simpson

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In '9/11: The Culture of Commemoration', Simpson argues that elements of the conventional culture of mourning and remembrance- grieving the dead, summarizing their lives in obituaries, and erecting monuments in their memory - have been co-opted for political advantage. He also confronts those who labeled the event an "apocalypse," condemning their exploitation of 9/11 for the defense of torture and war.

In four elegant chapters - two of which expand on essays originally published in the London Review of Books to great acclaim - Simpson analyzes the response to 9/11: the nationally syndicated "Portraits of Grief" obituaries in the New York Times; the debates over the rebuilding of the World Trade Center towers and the memorial design; the representation of American and Iraqi dead after the invasion of March 2003, along with the worldwide circulation of the Abu Ghraib torture photographs; and the urgent and largely ignored critique of homeland rhetoric from the domain of critical theory.

Calling for a sustained cultural and theoretical analysis, '9/11: The Culture of Commemoration' is the first book of its kind to consider the events of that tragic day with a perspective so firmly grounded in the humanities and so persuasive about the contribution they can make to our understanding of its consequences.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Taking Time
1. Remembering the Dead: An Essay upon Epitaphs
2. The Tower and the Memorial: Building, Meaning, Telling
3. Framing the Dead
4. Theory in the Time of Death
Bibliography
Index