Ideological Battlegrounds – Constructions of Us and Them Before and After 9/11 Volume 1: Perspectives in Literatures and Cultures
“The effects of 9/11 ramify through a network of conduits and pathways, including the examples of expressive culture this volume explores; and the registration of those effects will likewise be felt in an array of documents and texts. The cultural, literary, and mass mediated effects of 9/11 encompass the globe and the chapters in this volume assume a transnational and international range of vantage points.
The topics examined include the representation of Islam and Moslems in a number of texts and genres, the political and psychological dilemmas faced by characters in a number of literary works, and the refraction of current psycho-cultural-political tensions in forms of expressive culture in which the effects of 9/11 are felt in other than explicit ways. Was 9/11 a moment that punctuated and disrupted the movement of history or, as one of the authors suggests, did it act as a catalyst to escalate existing stereotypes? The chapters investigate not just different genres and cultural forms but distinct modes of intersection between the political, the cultural and the psychological. One achievement of this volume is to show how 9/11’s effects at times insinuate themselves in discourse through nuance and subtlety, and at other times frontally assault texts and images. In the words of one article, “modern Dutch post-9/11 novels directly participate in current cultural and political discourses.” By the same token, these cultural and political discourses participate in novels, films, TV shows, and the effects of 9/11 proliferate and concentrate in this exchange. This volume draws timely attention to the multiple forms of this complex interaction.”
Dr Patrick Hagopian, University of Lancaster
Joanna Witkowska holds a PhD in Literature, and works in the English Department at Szczecin University, Poland. Her research focuses on Polish-British cultural relationships. She has published on anti-Western propaganda and Polish-British relations during WWII. Her publications include The Image of the United Kingdom in Poland during the Stalinist Period (2009) and “The Importance of Inclusion: Polish Pilots in War-Time Britain” in Unity in Diversity, Volume 1: Cultural Paradigm and Personal Identity, edited by Julitta Rydlewska and Barbara Braid (2013).
Uwe Zagratzki has held various posts at the Universities of Osnabrück, Greifswald, Halle-Wittenberg, Rostock and Oldenburg, and has worked as a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Brno, the Czech Republic, and West Georgia, USA. A growing interest in Canadian Studies has been furthered by various scholarships from the International Council of Canadian Studies. He is Professor of British and Canadian Studies and Literatures at Szczecin University, Poland. He has widely published in his main fields of interest: Scottish, English and Canadian literatures and cultures, cultural studies, and war and literature.
"On the whole, this is a highly useful volume that offers stimulating case studies and theoretical insights, as well as extremely helpful surveys and references which cover such an impressive range of sources that the collection can also function as a reference work which is bound to inspire and support further research in this field."
—Dr Silke Stroh, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster; Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 26.2, 2015
"This volume provides a very diverse and extensive exposure to different textual and medial modellings of alterity. I heartily recommend this book not only to those who are interested in the topic of 9/11, but also to anyone interested in exemplary studies of the strategies and processes of stereotyping."
—Prof Dr Laurenz Volkmann, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena; Krieg und Literatur / War and Literature, 21 (2015)
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