Aesthetics of Terror: Reflections on Post-9/11 Literature and Visual Culture by John Christopher Vanderwees A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2014 John Christopher Vanderwees Vanderwees ii Abstract This dissertation project investigates cultural responses to visual representations of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. I examine the aesthetics, contexts, movements, and politics of post-9/11 visual culture across a range of media with a primary focus on photography and fiction. Recent scholarly articles and book length surveys on post-9/11 culture overwhelmingly charge popular literary and visual texts with participating in the reproduction of hegemonic norms and supporting a regressive climate of anti-feminism, hyper-masculinity, and reactionary politics. I contend that many scholars have actually foreclosed alternative interpretations and the production of new knowledge regarding post-9/11 literature and visual culture in the pursuit to reveal dominant ideologies at work. This project unfolds in three main sections, each of which develops “reparative readings” of visual and literary texts in an attempt to redeem valuable political, ethical, and affective aspects of post-9/11 visual culture that scholars have previously discounted or overlooked. The first section outlines post-9/11 victory culture and American exceptionalism through corporate media suppression of Richard Drew’s photograph, “The Falling Man.” I examine how dominant national narratives repress Drew’s photograph in an analysis of New York nostalgia and the cultural resurgence of tightrope walker Philippe Petit. Following Judith Butler’s more recent work, I argue that images of falling bodies might be redeemed, citing Jonathan Safran Foer’s employment of images in his fiction as an example, through an ethics of vulnerability. The second section examines William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition as a narrative that runs contrary to academic perceptions that figure post-9/11 fiction as narcissistically preoccupied with national trauma. Drawing from Jodi Dean, I argue that Vanderwees iii Gibson’s portrayal of “the footage,” a series of viral online images, reflects a harsh critique of online technologies and formulates terrorism as symptomatic of American imperialism and processes of globalization. The final section examines the Bush Administration’s use of Joel Meyerowitz’s Ground Zero photographs as part of an international foreign policy tour to gain support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Drawing from Jill Bennett’s extension of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of the event, I work beyond critiques that have only posited these photographs as propaganda, exploring the uncanny and ethical dimensions of Meyerowitz’s work, which has since been published as Aftermath. Vanderwees iv Acknowledgements I would like to express sincere gratitude to Dr. Priscilla Walton for her enthusiastic supervision of this project, her suggestions for improvement, and her encouragement during the writing and editing process. I am also particularly grateful for the support of Dr. Brian Johnson and Dr. Franny Nudelman who constantly provided me with patient guidance and constructive feedback. I thank Dr. Christopher Dornan and Dr. Michael Butter for their insightful comments, questions, and suggestions during my dissertation defense. I also thank Dr. Grant Williams and Dr. Barbara Leckie for all of their professional advice and administrative support. I am also indebted to Dr. Adam Barrows, Dr. Sarah Brouliette, Dr. Michael Dorland, and Dr. Stuart Murray for employing me as a research assistant on numerous projects. I owe special thanks to Dr. Rachel Warburton, Dr. Scott Pound, Dr. Lori Chambers, Dr. Bill Heath, Dr. Douglas Ivison, and Dr. Batia Stolar who continue to provide me with advice and inspiration. I am especially thankful for Danielle Letang and Anthony Pedace’s unwavering support, generosity, and willingness to discuss research topics with me. I am also grateful to John Suschkov and Lindsay Sommerauer who always provide me with a welcome escape from writing and research. I extend additional thanks to Kasey Douglas whose knowledge of photography and photographers never ceases to amaze me. I am exceptionally grateful to Larry and Mary Ann Hillsburg who have provided support and encouragement in so many ways. I also could not have completed this project without the help of my family, especially Joe, Laura, and John Vanderwees. I dedicate this work to Andrew Connolly and Heather Hillsburg who tirelessly discussed aspects of this research with me and who I owe more than I can return. Vanderwees v This project was also made possible through the financial support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Vanderwees vi Table of Contents ii Abstract iv Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Victory Culture and Photographs of Falling Bodies after 9/11 20 Introduction 26 Censorship, Victory Culture, and Exceptionalism in the Immediate Aftermath 43 Photographs of Falling Bodies and the Experience of Abjection 54 A Tightrope at the Twin Towers: James Marsh’s Man on Wire 68 Ethics and the Photography of Atrocity or Why Should We Look? 78 Falling and Flipbooks: The Ethics of Vulnerability and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Globalization, Communicative Capitalism, and William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition 91 Introduction 100 Globalization, Terrorism, and the Cultural Brandscape 120 Technology, Conspiracy Theories, and Communicative Capitalism 136 Online Technology and the Misrepresentation of Political Possibilities Photography of Ground Zero: Aesthetics and the Event in Joel Meyerowitz’s Aftermath 145 Introduction 151 Joel Meyerowitz and Aestheticizing the Ruins of Atrocity 163 Ground Zero Ruins: Aesthetics, Affect, and the Event 180 Haunting the Frame: Ruins of Destruction and Traces of the Virtual Vanderwees vii Conclusion 191 A Note on AMC’s Mad Men and Falling Bodies 198 Works Cited Vanderwees 1 Introduction It is the World Trade Center you came to see up close….From here you can see the Gothic detailing of the towers’ closely massed, aluminum- faced columns, stretching upward to what seem impossible heights. Even the towers surrounding these twins seem paltry by comparison….There is no denying the power of their mass and sleekness. But how much more clearly you could see the city, with its layers of accumulated history, if only those two vast and imposing structures weren’t here. The trick, then, is to make the World Trade Center disappear. (Darton 4) During the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, amateur and professional photographers gathered on the streets and rooftops of New York City in order to make images of the visual spectacle as it unfolded before them. “Manhattan seemed alive with cameras,” writes David Friend, and “[a]mid the horror, New Yorkers by the tens of thousands had committed millions of moments to film and video” (ix-x). Media images of the World Trade Center’s collapse were played and replayed incessantly on television, printed and reprinted in newspapers and magazines, shared and distributed on the Internet. Jonathan Flatley writes that the Twin Towers “offered a perfectly condensed and extremely visible site for a disaster that capitalized on the iconic reproducibility and, often horrible attraction of spectacle” (4). It is now perhaps a relatively obvious point to note that the terrorists more than likely planned the attacks with the significance of this visual spectacle in mind. Scholars partially attribute the massive production and Vanderwees 2 circulation of the terrorist attacks in visual media to the convergence of digital cameras, 24-hour newsgathering services, and the beginnings of Web 2.0 technology. These recent media developments enabled nearly instantaneous transmission of images and video footage of the terrorist attacks to audiences across the globe. Despite the iconicity of video footage capturing the collapse of the World Trade Center, photographs continue to play an important role in defining the collective memory and history of the terrorist attacks. “It is striking,” writes Marita Sturken, “that still photographs seem to have played a dominant role in the response to 9/11, far more than the television images. Unlike the television images which defined the media spectacle, the photograph seems to aid in mediating and negotiating a sense of loss” (186). Photography initially became a suspect activity at Ground Zero. Official signage instructed people to put their cameras away as part of Mayor Giuliani’s ban on unauthorized photography, and a certain moral discourse emerged around making pictures as an inappropriate response to the tragedy. A number of posters appeared near Ground Zero reprimanding amateur photographers for participating in dark tourism: “All Of You Taking Pictures: I wonder if you really see what is here or if you’re so concerned with getting that perfect shot that you’ve forgotten this is a tragedy site, not a tourist attraction” (qtd. in Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 14). Despite official and unofficial attempts to discourage photography, many New Yorkers and people from around the world made trips to Ground Zero, stood to look beyond the crowd barriers and police check points, and made Vanderwees 3 pictures of the site in the weeks and months after the attacks.1