Review
“His remains an invaluable achievement, for its nuanced attention to such a broad range of materials, for its overall clarity of focus and for its welcome readability. “ (M/C Reviews, May 2010)
“The book can serve as an excellent primary text assigned to students taken courses related to the same field.” ( Southwest Journal of Cultures, 2009)
From the Back Cover
9/11 Culture serves as a useful introduction to the complexities of American culture in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. With a broad purview that includes film, music, literary fiction and other popular arts, the volume is designed for anyone interested in quietly probing how American cultural agents and audiences have “acted out” and “worked through” the national trauma of 9/11. Written in an accessible language, and unburdened by academic jargon,
9/11 Culture constructs a number of common-sense approaches for the study of all of the works of art—high, low, and in-between.
Offering balanced examinations of a catalogue of artifacts culled from high (and low) culture--film, music, photos, memorials, comic strips, fiction, telethons, poetry--Melnick probes the silly as well as the superseding ways that 9/11 has exerted a shaping force on a wide range of practices, from the politics of femininity to the poetics of redemption. The ample pedagogical material--film- and discographies, introduction, and teachers preface--accompanying 9/11 Culture suggest to users the many ways one might begin tracking the cultural resonances of 9/11.
