1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910484208603321

Autore

Liao Pei-Chen

Titolo

Post-9/11 Historical Fiction and Alternate History Fiction : Transnational and Multidirectional Memory / / by Pei-chen Liao

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2020

ISBN

9783030524920

3030524922

Edizione

[1st ed. 2020.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (VII, 203 p.)

Disciplina

823.0876209358

800

Soggetti

Literature, Modern - 20th century

Literature, Modern - 21st century

Literature - History and criticism

Fiction

America - Literatures

Ethnology - America

Culture

Collective memory

Contemporary Literature

Literary History

Fiction Literature

North American Literature

American Culture

Memory Studies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Chapter 1 Introduction: Beyond and Before 9/11: A Transnational Historical Turn -- Chapter 2 “The Second Coming”: The Resurgence of the Historical Novel and American Alternate History -- Chapter 3: “America First”: Fear, Memory, Activism, and Everyday Life in Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America -- Chapter 4: “In Memory of Toyoko H. Nozaka”: Life Writing, Cultural Memory, and Historical Mediation in Julie



Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine -- Chapter 5: “Walking a Tightrope”: Illusion and Disillusion of American Innocence and Exceptionalism in Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin -- Chapter 6: “What about the Names?”: Post-9/11 Commemorative Culture and Islamaphobia in Amy Waldman’s The Submission -- Chapter 7: Conclusion: Connective Memories and Histories. .

Sommario/riassunto

Drawing on theories of historiography, memory, and diaspora, as well as from existing genre studies, this book explores why contemporary writers are so fascinated with history. Pei-chen Liao considers how fiction contributes to the making and remaking of the transnational history of the U.S. by thinking beyond and before 9/11, investigating how the dynamics of memory, as well as the emergent present, influences readers’ reception of historical fiction and alternate history fiction and their interpretation of the past. Set against the historical backdrop of WWII, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terror, the novels under discussion tell Jewish, Japanese, white American, African, Muslim, and Native Americans’ stories of trauma and survival. As a means to transmit memories of past events, these novels demonstrate how multidirectional memory can be not only collective but connective, as exemplified by the echoes that post-9/11 readers hear between different histories of violence that thenovels chronicle, as well as between the past and the present.