Terror In Global Narrative

This is a collection of interdisciplinary essays that examines the historical, political, and social significance of 9/11. This collection considers 9/11 as an event situated within the much larger historical context of late late-capitalism, a paradoxical time in which American and capitalist hegemony exist as pervasive and yet under precarious circumstances. Contributors to this collection examine the ways in which 9/11 changed both everything and, at the same time, nothing at all. They likewise examine the implications of 9/11 through a variety of different media and art forms including literature, film, television, and street art.

This is a collection of interdisciplinary essays that examines the historical, political, and social significance of 9/11. This collection considers 9/11 as an event situated within the much larger historical context of late late-capitalism, a paradoxical time in which American and capitalist hegemony exist as pervasive and yet under precarious circumstances. Contributors to this collection examine the ways in which 9/11 changed both everything and, at the same time, nothing at all. They likewise examine the implications of 9/11 through a variety of different media and art forms including literature, film, television, and street art.

Challenging the predominantly Euro-American approaches to the field, this volume brings together essays on a wide array of literary, filmic and journalistic responses to the decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shifting the focus from so-called 9/11 literature to narratives of the war on terror, and from the transatlantic world to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, the Afghan-Pak border region, South Waziristan, Al-Andalus and Kenya, the book captures the multiple transnational reverberations of the discourses on terrorism, counter-terrorism and insurgency. These include, but are not restricted to, the realignment of geopolitical power relations; the formation of new terrorist networks (ISIS) and regional alliances (Iraq/Syria); the growing number of terrorist incidents in the West; the changing discourses on security and technologies of warfare; and the leveraging of fundamental constitutional principles. The essays featured in this volume draw upon, and critically engage with, the conceptual trajectories within American literary debates, postcolonial discourse and transatlantic literary criticism. Collectively, they move away from the trauma-centrism and residual US-centrism of early literary responses to 9/11 and the criticism thereon, while responding to postcolonial theory’s call for a historical foregrounding of terrorism, insurgency and armed violence in the colonial-imperial power nexus. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of English Studies.

An entire generation of young adults has never known an America without the War on Terror. This book contends with the pervasive effects of post-9/11 policy and myth-making in every corner of American life. Never-Ending War on Terror is organized around five keywords that have come to define the cultural and political moment: homeland, security, privacy, torture, and drone. Alex Lubin synthesizes nearly two decades of United States war-making against terrorism by asking how the War on Terror has changed American politics and society, and how the War on Terror draws on historical myths about American national and imperial identity. From the PATRIOT Act to the hit show Homeland, from Edward Snowden to Guantanamo Bay, and from 9/11 memorials to Trumpism, this succinct book connects America's political economy and international relations to our contemporary culture at every turn.

"A sophisticated and persuasive late-modernist political analysis that consistently draws the reader into the narratives of the author and those of the people of violence in Northern Ireland to whom he talked. . . . Simply put, this book is a feast for the intellect"—Thomas M. Wilson, American Anthropologist "One of the best books to have been written on Northern Ireland. . . . A highly imagination and significant book. Formations of Violence is an important addition to the literature on political violence."—David E. Schmitt, American Political Science Review

This book explores terrorism as a strategic choice-- one made carefully and deliberately by rational actors. Through an analysis of the terrorist groups of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, this book charts a series of different strategic 'scripts' at play in terrorist behavior, from survival, to efforts in mobilizing a supporter base, through to the grinding attrition of a long terrorist campaign. The theme that runs through all the organizations is the unbridgeable gap between their strategic vision, and what actually unfolds. Regardless of which script terrorists follow, they often fall short of achieving their political ambitions. And yet, despite its frequent failure, the terrorist strategy is returned to time and again-- people continue to join such groups, and to commit mindless acts of violence. Scripts of Terror explores the reasons behind this. It asks why, if terrorism is so rarely successful and so hard to pull off, its approach remains an appealing one. And it examines how terrorists formulate their strategies, and how they envisage achieving their ambitions through violence. Most importantly, it explores why they so often fail.

Throughout the world, the mass media are responsible for shaping the form and content of experiences. In this book, David L. Altheide examines how the mass media, including news and popular culture, have cast terrorism, propaganda and social control post 9/11. Altheide shows how fear works with terrorism to alter discourse, social meanings, and our sense of being in the world. Emphasis is placed on the different institutional interventions and how these particular stories become framed and inform the wider media narratives of terror. The author argues that post 9/11 we are witnessing the emergence of new communication formats that not only constitute counter-narratives, but also shape future communicative experience. The text is suitable for scholars and students interested in the ongoing relationship between the media and terror post 9/11.

This book shows how dominant narratives have shaped the national security policies of the United States.

Scanlan (English, Indiana University South Bend) considers several novels about terrorists and considers what they say about the role of the writer in modern society and politics. She examines the figure of the writer as a rival or a mirror of the terrorist, tracing the development of this relationship from its Romantic origins to the age of the Unabomber. The works of DeLillo, Rushdie, McNamee, Mary McCarthy, Lessing, Coetzee, Durrenmatt, Roth, Robert Stone, Volodine, and Conrad are specifically considered. c. Book News Inc.

This book examines the language of the war on terrorism and is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how the Bush administration's approach to counter-terrorism became the dominant policy paradigm in American politics today.