Literature and terrorism : : comparative perspectives / / edited by Michael C. Frank and Eva Gruber.

• Superior document: Text (Rodopi (Firm)), 66
• TeilnehmendeR: Frank, Michael C.; Gruber, Eva.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Text (Rodopi (Firm)) ; 66.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (273 p.)
• Notes: International conference proceedings.

The years following the attacks of September 11, 2001 have seen the publication of a wide range of scientific analyses of terrorism. Literary studies seem to lag curiously behind this general shift of academic interest. The present volume sets out to fill this gap. It does so in the conviction that the study of literature has much to offer to the transdisciplinary investigation of terror, not only with respect to the present post-9/11 situation but also with respect to earlier historical contexts. Literary texts are media of cultural self-reflection, and as such they have always played a crucial role in the discursive response to terror, both contributing to and resisting dominant conceptions of the causes, motivations, dynamics, and aftermath of terrorist violence. By bringing together experts from various fields and by combining case studies of works from diverse periods and national literatures, the volume Literature and Terrorism chooses a diachronic and comparative perspective. It is interested in the specific cultural work performed by narrative and dramatic literature in the face of terrorism, focusing on literature's ambivalent relationship to other, competing modes of discourse.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- LITERATURE AND TERRORISM: INTRODUCTION / Michael C. Frank and Eva Gruber -- SERGEY NECHAEV AND DOSTOEVSKY’S DEVILS: THE LITERARY ANSWER TO TERRORISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA / Gudrun Braunsperger -- PLOTS ON LONDON: TERRORISM IN TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY BRITISH FICTION / Michael C. Frank -- ENMITY AND THE ARCHIVE: AESTHETICS OF DEFIGURATION IN LITERATURE AND CRIMINOLOGY, 1900/1970 / Hendrik Blumentrath -- NARRATING TERRORISM ON THE EVE OF 9/11: ANN PATCHETT’S BEL CANTO / Eva Gruber -- SELF, IDENTITY AND TERRORISM IN CURRENT AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICAN PASTORAL AND TERRORIST / Martina Wolff -- THE 9/11 NOVEL AND THE POLITICS OF NARCISSISM / Roy Scranton -- AFTER THE APOCALYPSE: NOVELISTS AND TERRORISTS SINCE 9/11 / Margaret Scanlan -- LITERARY ACCOUNTS OF TERRORISM IN RECENT GERMAN LITERATURE: AN ATTEMPT AT MARGINALIZATION? / Michael König -- DOUBLE-MEDIATED TERRORISM: GERHARD RICHTER AND DON DELILLO’S “BAADER-MEINHOF” / Ulrich Meurer -- A FANTASTIC TALE OF TERROR: ARGENTINA’S “DISAPPEARED” AND THEIR NARRATIVE REPRESENTATION IN JULIO CORTÁZAR’S “SECOND TIME ROUND” / Kirsten Mahlke -- MIDDLE HOURS: TERRORISM AND NARRATIVE EMPLOTMENT IN ANDRE DUBUS III’S THE GARDEN OF LAST DAYS / Georgiana Banita -- NARRATIVES OF TERROR: A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE NOVEL? / Marie-Luise Egbert -- THE IMPACT OF “SEPTEMBER 11”: DRAMATIC AND NARRATIVE CREATIONS / Herbert Grabes -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS -- INDEX.