Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:10:58.218Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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

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
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abraham, Nicolas, and Torok, Maria. The Shell and the Kernel. Ed. and trans. Rand, Nicholas T. Vol. 1. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
Albright, Madeleine K. Interview by Lauer, Matt. The Today Show. NBC. 19 Feb. 1998. Transcript. U.S. Department of State. Web. 12 Aug. 2014.Google Scholar
Bergland, Renee L. The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects. Hanover: UP of New England, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Blackhawk, Ned. Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Bush, George W.Address to the Joint Session of the 107th Congress.” Selected Speeches of President George W. Bush, 2001-2008. The White House: President George W. Bush. Web. 12 Aug. 2014.Google Scholar
Castronovo, Russ. Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth Century United States. Durham: Duke UP, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Dower, John. Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11/Iraq. New York: Norton, 2010. Print.Google Scholar
Freeman, Joshua. American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home. New York: Penguin, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Galeano, Eduardo. ‘“My Great Fear Is That We Are All Suffering from Amnesia.‘” Interview by Gary Younge. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 23 July 2013. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.Google Scholar
Garraway, Charles. “Afghanistan and the Nature of Conflict.” The War in Afghanistan: A Legal Analysis. Ed. Schmitt, Michael N. Washington: GPO, 2009. 157–80. Print.Google Scholar
Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Graburn, Nelson H., Ertl, John, and Tierney, R. Kenji. Multiculturalism and the New Japan. New York: Berghahn, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Cultures after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia UP, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Mariner, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Holmes, John Haynes. “Editorial Comment.” Unity Sept. 1945: 99. Print.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Robert D. Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground. New York: Random, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
LaDuke, Winona. The Militarization of Indian Country. East Lansing: Makwa Enewed, 2013. Print.Google Scholar
LaDuke, Winona. Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming. Cambridge: South End, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Lane, Charles. “The Legend of Colin Powell.” New Republic 17 Apr. 1995: 20+. Print.Google Scholar
Laurence, William L.Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Told by Flight Member.” New York Times 9 Sept. 1945: 1+. The New York Times. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.Google Scholar
Masco, Joseph. “Engineering the Future as Nuclear Ruin.” Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination. Ed. Stoler, Ann Laura. Durham: Duke UP, 2013. 251–86. Print.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Mary. “Letter to the Editor.” Politics 3 Oct. 1946: 364–69. Print.Google Scholar
McCoy, Alfred, and Scarano, Francisco A., eds. Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Murrow, Edward R. In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938-1961. New York: Knopf, 1967. Print.Google Scholar
Packer, George. The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq. New York: Farrar, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Ray, Gene. Terror and the Sublime in Art and Critical Theory: From Auschwitz to Hiroshima to September 11. New York: Palgrave, 2005. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Condoleezza. Interview by Blitzer, Wolf. CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. CNN. 8 Sept. 2002. CNN. Web. 12 Aug. 2014.Google Scholar
Ross, Daniel. Violent Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwab, Gabriele. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia UP, 2010. Print.Google Scholar
Scott, David. Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Selchow, Sabine. “An Interplay of Traditions: The Return of ‘Uncertainty’ and Its Taming in Post-9/11 US Security Thinking.” Interpreting Global Security. Ed. Bevir, Mark, Daddow, Oliver, and Hall, Ian. London: Routledge, 2013. 3552. Print.Google Scholar
Smith, Alice Kimball, and Weiner, Charles, eds. Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980. Print.Google Scholar
Takaki, Ronald. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. Boston: Little, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
The 36-Hour War.” Life 19 Nov. 1945: 2734. Print.Google Scholar
Thorup, Mikkel. An Intellectual History of Terror: War, Violence, and the State. Oxford: Routledge, 2010. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, E. B., ed. The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters. New York: Houghton, 1946. Print.Google Scholar
Woodward, Bob. Plan of Attack. New York: Simon, 2004. Print.Google Scholar