9/11 Culture

9/11 Culture serves as a timely and accessible introduction to the complexities of American culture in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

• Gives balanced examinations of a broad catalogue of artifacts from film, music, photography, literary fiction, and other popular arts
• Investigates the ways that 9/11 has exerted a shaping force on a wide range of practices, from the politics of femininity to the poetics of redemption
• Includes pedagogical material to assist understanding and teaching, including film and discographies, and a useful teachers' preface

Acknowledgments vi

Introduction: 9/11 Questions (and Answers) 1

1 Rumors 25

2 Telethon 50

3 Snapshots 64

4 Rising 78

5 Us 94

6 Tools 122

7 Shout-Outs 141

Bibliography 160

Appendix 1: 9/11 in Film and on Television 169

Appendix 2: 9/11 Music 172

A Note to Teachers 177

Index 180

“His remains an invaluable achievement, for its nuanced attention to such a broad range of materials, for its overall clarity of focus and for its welcome readability. “ (M/C Reviews, May 2010)

“The book can serve as an excellent primary text assigned to students taken courses related to the same field.” ( Southwest Journal of Cultures, 2009)

Jeffrey Melnick is Associate Professor of American Studies at Babson College. He is author of two books on Black-Jewish relations: A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song (1999) and Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South (2000). Melnick is an active public speaker has appeared many times on local and national radio and television. 9/11 Culture serves as a useful introduction to the complexities of American culture in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. With a broad purview that includes film, music, literary fiction and other popular arts, the volume is designed for anyone interested in quietly probing how American cultural agents and audiences have “acted out” and “worked through” the national trauma of 9/11. Written in an accessible language, and unburdened by academic jargon, 9/11 Culture constructs a number of common-sense approaches for the study of all of the works of art—high, low, and in-between.

Offering balanced examinations of a catalogue of artifacts culled from high (and low) culture--film, music, photos, memorials, comic strips, fiction, telethons, poetry--Melnick probes the silly as well as the superseding ways that 9/11 has exerted a shaping force on a wide range of practices, from the politics of femininity to the poetics of redemption. The ample pedagogical material--film- and discographies, introduction, and teachers preface--accompanying 9/11 Culture suggest to users the many ways one might begin tracking the cultural resonances of 9/11.