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Fantasies of Oblivion: Post-9/11 Literature and the Passion for the Real by Marc Acherman M.A., Simon Fraser University, 2006 B.A., University of British Columbia, 2004 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Marc Acherman 2014 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Summer 2014 Approval Name: Marc Acherman Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title: Fantasies of Oblivion: Post-9/11 Literature and the Passion for the Real Examining Committee: Chair: Michelle Levy Associate Professor of English Dr. Jeff Derksen Senior Supervisor Associate Professor of English Dr. Jon Smith Co-Supervisor Associate Professor of English Dr. Clint Burnham Supervisor Associate Professor of English Dr. Roxanne Panchasi Internal Examiner Associate Professor of History Dr. Phillip Wegner External Examiner Professor of English University of Florida, Gainesville, FL Date Defended: August 21, 2014 ii Partial Copyright Licence iii Abstract Fantasies of Oblivion proposes that a series of post-9/11 literary texts – including David Foster Wallace’s The Suffering Channel, Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs, Martin Amis’ “The Last Days of Muhammad Atta,” Teju Cole’s Open City and Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge – reveal contradictions inherent to the dominant historical narratives of 11 September 2001. In their fiction, these authors stage a set of cultural, social and historical fantasies that obscured the material and symbolic implications of the terrorist attacks, but show those fantasies to be misleading and incomplete descriptions of American history and identity. My project converses with two dominant strands within studies of post-9/11 literature: one strand claims that the current archive of texts reproduces the ideological myopia already evident so soon after the attacks; the other contends that the texts participate in a necessary and therapeutic project of personal, urban and national healing. In contrast, my dissertation argues that Wallace, Moore, Amis, Cole and Pynchon take oblique approaches to 11 September 2001 in order to displace the dominant temporal genres of traumatic shock, nostalgic return and melancholic futurity that circulate around the tragic events. I claim these temporal genres are fantasies of “oblivion” not just because they are fantasies fixated on erasing the traumatic spectacle of real death at the hands of foreign powers, but also because they facilitate disavowal of symbolic death, preventing the realization that America is non- identical with its self-image and in fact, this non-identity is built into its self-image. If the nation retreated into its founding myths of altruism, innocence and exceptionalism, and thus missed an opportunity on 11 September 2001 to better understand itself and its role in the world, then the post-9/11 literary archive reveals the limitations of this retreat and in doing so generates an opportunity to traverse the fantasies of the nation and re-open the void the nation too quickly closed, the abyssal “Ground-Zero” of the psyche. Keywords: 9/11 Literature; 11 September 2001; American culture and politics; psychoanalytic criticism iv Dedication To my parents v Acknowledgements The history of Fantasies of Oblivion is the history of the countless relationships I have developed over the past several years. My sincere thanks to the entire Simon Fraser University Department of English. I am fortunate to have such an intelligent, congenial and supportive cohort of fellow travellers. Thank you for taking me in, responding to my ideas, supporting my curiosity and most of all for your friendship. I can only hope I have been equal to it. In particular, I owe a great deal to the intelligence, patience and generosity of my dissertation supervisors, Dr. Jeff Derksen, Dr. Jon Smith, Dr. Clint Burnham and Dr. Susan Brook. They have read more pages than any humans reasonably should be expected to read and they did everything possible to help me make them better. There would be no dissertation without them. Thanks for encouraging me—and for not complaining even once. None of this would have been possible without the generous financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the President’s Research Stipend, the Temple Maynard Graduate Scholarship in English, the SFU Dean of Graduate Studies Minor Travel Award, the Ann William Messenger Fund and the SFU Department of English. May you all continue to support thoughtful research in the Humanities. Thank you most of all to my mother and father, who always encouraged me to put my education first, to my brother for his good humor, and to Livia, the kindest partner, savviest editor and loveliest company I could possibly hope for. vi Table of Contents Approval .......................................................................................................................... ii Partial Copyright Licence ............................................................................................... iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iv Dedication ....................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vi Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... vii Introduction. Fantasies of Oblivion ............................................................................ 1 Resisting Closure ............................................................................................................ 4 Affective Genres ............................................................................................................ 13 Ashes of American Flags .............................................................................................. 21 Fetishistic Disavowal ..................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 1. Uncanny Objects: Sublimation, Disgust and Pre-9/11 Culture in The Suffering Channel ...................................................................... 38 1.1. The Horror of ‘the Horror’ ...................................................................................... 38 1.2. Irony of the Banal ................................................................................................. 40 1.3. ‘Some Kind of Unconscious Visible Code’ ............................................................ 45 1.4. The Dream of the ‘Two Front Doors’ ..................................................................... 49 1.5. Fetishes of False Immediacy ................................................................................ 52 1.6. ‘The Transfiguration of Disgust’ ............................................................................ 62 Chapter 2. Failed Reproduction: Domesticity and Disunited States in A Gate at the Stairs ................................................................................... 74 2.1. Ordinary Crisis ...................................................................................................... 74 2.2. ‘Good-Life’ Fantasies ............................................................................................ 77 2.3. Restorative Nostalgia and Domesticity ................................................................. 79 2.4. Reflective Nostalgia .............................................................................................. 84 2.5. Disunited States ................................................................................................... 87 2.6. Family as Metaphor .............................................................................................. 94 2.7. Failed Reproduction ............................................................................................. 99 2.8. Non-Reproductive Futurism ................................................................................ 104 2.9. Meaningful Silences ........................................................................................... 109 Chapter 3. Dead Time: Surveillance Circuits in ‘The Last Days of Muhammad Atta’ .................................................................................. 113 3.1. Surveillance Fantasies ........................................................................................ 113 3.2. Profiling the ‘Unknown Known’ ........................................................................... 116 3.3. Muhammad Atta Between Two Deaths ............................................................... 126 3.4. Surveillance Aesthetics ....................................................................................... 130 3.5. Affective Circuits ................................................................................................. 135 3.6. The Perverse Loop ............................................................................................. 139 vii 3.7. Dead Time .......................................................................................................... 144 Chapter 4. In the Blind-Spot: Post-9/11 Subjectivity and Urban Spaces in Open City ............................................................................................. 150 4.1. Immigration Fantasies .......................................................................................