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Imperial Ghosting and National Tragedy: Revenants from Hiroshima and Indian Country in the War on Terror

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Anne McClintock
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Extract

What does it mean to saythat we live in tragic times? the 9-11 attack was certainly a tragedy, but whose tragedy was it? What constitutes a national tragedy in the first place? Ned Blackhawk points out that a nation unable to confront its past will surely compromise its civic future (293). What are the consequences of sacralizing one national calamity (the 9-11 attack) as a world-historic tragedy while ghosting the other foundational violences of United States history, which have returned to haunt the post-9-11 era as unspeakable premonitions and accusatory revenants? “Mark me,” said the ghost.

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Information
PMLA , Volume 129 , Issue 4: Special Topic Tragedy , October 2014 , pp. 819 - 829
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2014

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