9/11: The Culture of Commemoration

by David Simpson

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a general sense that the world was different—that nothing would ever be the same—settled upon a grieving nation; the events of that day were received as cataclysmic disruptions of an ordered world. Refuting this claim, David Simpson examines the complex and paradoxical character of American public discourse since that September morning, considering the ways the event has been aestheticized, exploited, and appropriated,  while “Ground Zero” remains the contested site of an effort at adequate commemoration. 

In 9/11, 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 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.

Genres: American History, Cultural, Politics, Nonfiction

182 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David Simpson is Distinguished Professor of English of UC Davis, Yolo County. He obtained his B.A. from Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1973, his M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1974 and earned his Ph.D. from Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1977.
He taught at Columbia, University of Colorado, Northwestern University, and Cambridge, before joining UC Davis in 1997.

Reviews

[Christopher Rex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this book a "2" for readability and a "3 or 4" for content. It's a shame the author is WAY too "professor-ish" w/ his writing here, b/c it raises some excellent points and disturbing questions - particularly about ourselves. Read it with an open mind about who "we" are, who "they" are and how we come to define these concepts, particularly in relation to the War on Terror.

Events like 9-11 and how we memorialize them are of great significance in insuring that we keep a firm dichotomy between "us" and "them". This is essential in justifying all of the horrors we perpetuate upon others in the name of (relatively mild) suffering by ourselves. The author brings out some mind-blowing thoughts and concepts, most notable the discussion of the Abu Ghraib torture/dehumanization by Americans and how this destroys our notion of "us" and "them" in that we are clearly torturers too. This is exactly why it is essential for us to bury such incidents b/c they run counter to our "Culture of Commemoration" and the Memory Hole is absolutely critical to maintaining our simplistic "us-them, good-bad" dichotomy. If there is no "bad" in the world, how can we be "good"? Or if we are not "good" then who is "bad" (and who are we at all)?

It's just a shame the author was/is so wordy (even in a short book) and professor-y. Extremely interesting if you are up for a read that is not particularly for "mass-consumption" in its writing style (and it is a shame it is not).

[Cory]

Challenging, provocative, and even shocking. Food for thought.