Abstract
As attacks on the existing order, large-scale terrorist incidents unequivocally elicit what this chapter describes as “crisis discourse” on the part of the governments affected. This became particularly salient in the aftermath of the crashing of four hijacked passenger planes on 11 September 2001, an event that prompted US President George W. Bush to declare a far-reaching “war on terror.” The official narrative surrounding this counterterrorist campaign positioned 9/11 as a radically singular event that had literally occurred out of the blue, a conception reinforced by commentators in the media and academia who drew on popular trauma theory to explain the perceived break with normality caused by the attacks. Crisis discourse involves a particular framing of an event, and in the case of 9/11, this framing entailed a dehistoricisation of the attacks. Against this background, it is interesting to ask how fictional narratives about 9/11 and its aftermath have contributed to the larger public discourse. As I want to suggest, there has been a shift of focus, in the course of the 2000s, from “9/11 the day itself, in New York” (Shamsie, 2012), to a historically and geographically more encompassing perspective. In the process, 9/11 has been shown to be connected to other crises—including those engendered by US interventions before and since 11 September 2001.
Frank, Michael C