Dramatic History/Historical Drama. Staging 9/11 as Aristotelian Tragedy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2020.i15.721Keywords:
post-9/11 rhetoric, 9/11Memorial Museum, Aristotle’s PoeticsAbstract
This article intends to inquire the official narrative of the 9/11 terrorist attacks exhibited at the 9/11 Memorial Museum as a mise-en-scène of a tragedy according to the definition theorized by Aristotle in his Poetics. Indeed, the 9/11MM stages a master narrative of the attacks that frames the historical reconstruction and nurtures the memorial endeavor on the basis of Aristotle’s unity of time and place; predominance of performance over narration; explicit distinction between heroes and villains; and the inspiration, in the spectator, of the empathic feelings of fear and pity ultimately leading to the catharsis. In turn, this enactment may be read as the apex of the “us vs. them” rhetoric, inaugurated by President Bush in the wake of the attacks and subsequently endorsed by other politicians and the media alike.References
9/11 Memorial & Museum. https://www.911memorial.org/ All websites last visited on 05/03/2020.
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher, 2008. www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm.
Bush, George W. “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People.” United States Capitol: 20 September 2001. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov.
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Craven, Jackie. “About Arad’s Design for the National 9/11 Memorial.” ThoughtCo, 02 September 2018. https://www.thoughtco.com/arads-design-9-11-memorial-178129.
Di Leo, Jeffrey R. and Uppinder Mehan. “Introduction. Theory Ground Zero: Terror, Theory, and the Humanities after 9/11.” Terror, Theory and the Humanities. London: Open Humanities Press, 2012. 11-34.
Fish, Stanley. “Don’t Blame Relativism.” The Responsive Community 12.3 (2002): 27-31.
---. “Postmodern Warfare.” Harper’s Magazine, July 2002: 33-40.
Giuliani, Rudolph. “Address to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Terrorism.” New York: 1 October 2001. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
Gopnik, Adam “Stones and Bones.” The New Yorker, 7 July 2014.
Hawthorne, Christopher. “At 9/11 Memorial Museum, A Relentless Literalism.” The Los Angeles Times 26 May 2014. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-911-museum-review-20140526-column.html.
Hubanks, Joshua. “Praise, Blame and Advocacy. An examination of President George W. Bush Post-9/11 Discourse and the Rhetorical Genres that Define It.” intersections 10.2 (2009): 199-225.
Jameson, Fredric. “The Dialectics of Disaster.” Dissent from Homeland. Essays after September 11. Edited by Frank Lentricchia and Stanley Hauerwas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. 55- 61.
Kimmelman, Michael. “Finding Space for the Living at a Memorial.” The New York Times 28 May 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/arts/design/finding-space-for-the-living-at-a-memorial.html.
Knoll, Corina. “What Happens to the Heartbreaking Tributes Left at the 9/11 Memorial.” The New York Times 9 September 2019.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/nyregion/9-11-memorial-museum.html.
McKim, Joel. “Agamben at Ground Zero. A Memorial without Content.” Theory, Culture & Society 25.5 (2008): 83-103.
---. Architecture, Media, and Memory: Facing Complexity in Post-9/11 New York. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019.
Otterman, Sharon. “Film at 9/11 Museum Sets Off Clash over Reference to Islam.” The New York Times 23 April 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/nyregion/interfaith-panel-denounces-a-9-11-museum-exhibits-portrayal-of-islam.html.
Pease, Donald E. The New American Exceptionalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
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Rojas, Rick. “Unsung 9/11 Heroes Finally Get Their Own Memorial.” New York Times 30 May 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/nyregion/sept-11-memorial-nyc.html.
Rosenblatt, Roger. “The Age of Irony Comes to an End.” Time 24 September 2001.
Rothstein, Edward. “Attacks on U.S. Challenge Postmodern True Believers.” The New York Times 22 September 2001. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/arts/connections-attacks-us-challenge-perspectives-postmodern-true-believers.html.
---. “Defining Evil in the Wake of 9/11.” The New York Times 5 October 2002.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/05/books/defining-evil-in-the-wake-of-9-11.html.
Sodaro, Amy. Exhibiting Atrocity. Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018.
Stubblefield, Thomas. “The Failure of the Failure of Images: The Crisis of the Unrepresentable from the Graphic Novel to the 9/11 Memorial.” 9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. 153-178.
Sturken, Marita. “The 9/11 Memorial Museum and the Remaking of Ground Zero.” American Quarterly 67.2 (2015): 471-490.
---. “The Objects that Lived: The 9/11 Museum and Material Transformation.” Memory Studies 9.1 (2016): 13-26.
Trebay, Guy. “A Moment in Time Captured in Pieces.” The New York Times 13 August 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/fashion/a-moment-in-time-captured-in-pieces.html
Wainwright, Oliver. “9/11 Memorial Museum: An Emotional Underworld beneath Ground Zero.” The Guardian 14 May 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/14/9-11-memorial-museum-new-york.
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher, 2008. www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm.
Bush, George W. “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People.” United States Capitol: 20 September 2001. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov.
---. “Remarks at the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance Service.” Hospital Center: 14 September 2001. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PPP-2001-book2/pdf/PPP-2001-book2-doc-pg1108.pdf.
Craven, Jackie. “About Arad’s Design for the National 9/11 Memorial.” ThoughtCo, 02 September 2018. https://www.thoughtco.com/arads-design-9-11-memorial-178129.
Di Leo, Jeffrey R. and Uppinder Mehan. “Introduction. Theory Ground Zero: Terror, Theory, and the Humanities after 9/11.” Terror, Theory and the Humanities. London: Open Humanities Press, 2012. 11-34.
Fish, Stanley. “Don’t Blame Relativism.” The Responsive Community 12.3 (2002): 27-31.
---. “Postmodern Warfare.” Harper’s Magazine, July 2002: 33-40.
Giuliani, Rudolph. “Address to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Terrorism.” New York: 1 October 2001. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
Gopnik, Adam “Stones and Bones.” The New Yorker, 7 July 2014.
Hawthorne, Christopher. “At 9/11 Memorial Museum, A Relentless Literalism.” The Los Angeles Times 26 May 2014. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-911-museum-review-20140526-column.html.
Hubanks, Joshua. “Praise, Blame and Advocacy. An examination of President George W. Bush Post-9/11 Discourse and the Rhetorical Genres that Define It.” intersections 10.2 (2009): 199-225.
Jameson, Fredric. “The Dialectics of Disaster.” Dissent from Homeland. Essays after September 11. Edited by Frank Lentricchia and Stanley Hauerwas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. 55- 61.
Kimmelman, Michael. “Finding Space for the Living at a Memorial.” The New York Times 28 May 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/arts/design/finding-space-for-the-living-at-a-memorial.html.
Knoll, Corina. “What Happens to the Heartbreaking Tributes Left at the 9/11 Memorial.” The New York Times 9 September 2019.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/nyregion/9-11-memorial-museum.html.
McKim, Joel. “Agamben at Ground Zero. A Memorial without Content.” Theory, Culture & Society 25.5 (2008): 83-103.
---. Architecture, Media, and Memory: Facing Complexity in Post-9/11 New York. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019.
Otterman, Sharon. “Film at 9/11 Museum Sets Off Clash over Reference to Islam.” The New York Times 23 April 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/nyregion/interfaith-panel-denounces-a-9-11-museum-exhibits-portrayal-of-islam.html.
Pease, Donald E. The New American Exceptionalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Recuber, Timothy. Consuming Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America’s Decade of Disaster. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016.
Rojas, Rick. “Unsung 9/11 Heroes Finally Get Their Own Memorial.” New York Times 30 May 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/nyregion/sept-11-memorial-nyc.html.
Rosenblatt, Roger. “The Age of Irony Comes to an End.” Time 24 September 2001.
Rothstein, Edward. “Attacks on U.S. Challenge Postmodern True Believers.” The New York Times 22 September 2001. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/arts/connections-attacks-us-challenge-perspectives-postmodern-true-believers.html.
---. “Defining Evil in the Wake of 9/11.” The New York Times 5 October 2002.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/05/books/defining-evil-in-the-wake-of-9-11.html.
Sodaro, Amy. Exhibiting Atrocity. Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018.
Stubblefield, Thomas. “The Failure of the Failure of Images: The Crisis of the Unrepresentable from the Graphic Novel to the 9/11 Memorial.” 9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. 153-178.
Sturken, Marita. “The 9/11 Memorial Museum and the Remaking of Ground Zero.” American Quarterly 67.2 (2015): 471-490.
---. “The Objects that Lived: The 9/11 Museum and Material Transformation.” Memory Studies 9.1 (2016): 13-26.
Trebay, Guy. “A Moment in Time Captured in Pieces.” The New York Times 13 August 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/fashion/a-moment-in-time-captured-in-pieces.html
Wainwright, Oliver. “9/11 Memorial Museum: An Emotional Underworld beneath Ground Zero.” The Guardian 14 May 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/14/9-11-memorial-museum-new-york.
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2020-06-01
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