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Narrative Exploits:
Space and Trauma in Contemporary American Literature by

Dale Pattison

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Approved February 2013 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee:
Deborah Clarke, Co-Chair Daniel Gilfillan, Co-Chair Ayanna Thompson

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2013

ABSTRACT
This dissertation analyzes contemporary American literature, which includes novels, graphic novels, film, and television of the last forty years, to deconstruct the critical relationship between lived space, institutional power, and trauma. It examines literary representations of traumatic moments in recent American history—the attacks on the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, the emergence of the Homeland Security state, and the introduction of the “new metropolis”—to demonstrate that collective trauma at the turn of the century is very much a product of the individual’s complex relationship to the state and its institutional auxiliaries. As many philosophers and social critics have argued, institutional forces in contemporary America often deprive individuals of active political engagement through processes of narrative production, and this study discusses how literature both represents and simulates the traumatic consequences of this encounter. Looking to theories on urban, domestic, and textual space, this dissertation explores and problematizes the political and psychological dimensions of space, demonstrating how trauma is enacted through space and how individuals may utilize space and exploit narrative to achieve critical distance from institutional power. Literature as a narrative medium presents vital opportunities both for exposing the machinery of institutional power and for generating positions against the narratives produced by the state.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my dissertation committee for several years of guidance, friendship, and valuable criticism. Dan Gilfillan, who first introduced me to theories on trauma and space early in my graduate career, has been a constant source of support, both personally and professionally, and our meetings at Casey Moore’s always left me encouraged to take new approaches with my research. Deb Clarke never allowed me an easy claim. Her attention to my writing, as well as her close mentorship from the first stages of my research, strengthened me, intellectually, beyond measure. Ayanna Thompson encouraged me to pursue the things that interest me most, and her advice, I suspect, will stick with me throughout my career as an educator. Finally, Eddie Mallot, whom I secretly considered (probably without his knowledge) a kind of fourth committee member, always had some nugget of wisdom to pass my way, and for his guidance I give thanks.

I would also like to thank The Institute for Humanities Research at ASU, where I have served as the graduate fellow for the past year. The IHR gave me the opportunity to share my work with six resident and visiting fellows in a unique interdisciplinary environment.

Lastly, I would like to thank Fernando Perez, Katie Berta, and Hugh Martin, my friends here at ASU, who, having heard quite enough about my dissertation, are probably eager for me to begin a new project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER Page

INTRODUCTION 1

Trauma as a Spatial Encounter 4

Trauma in the Age of Biopolitics 8

Literatures of Trauma and the Trauma of Literature 20

Unpacking Trauma 26

1. 
   TRAUMATIC IRONY 32
   

Mediated Narratives 37

Fractured Narratives 54

Manufactured Narratives 73

2. 
   WRITING HOME 92
   

Domestic Imaginaries 97

Domestic Violence 125

3. 
   SMOOTHING OUT THE CITY 149
   

Political Floodwaters and the Military City 159

Rehabilitating the City 184

4. 
   TRAUMATIC DISLOCATION 210
   

Trauma and the 710 220

Where Did Our Love Go? 244

5. 
   TACTICAL TEXTS 272
   

Laying Out the Narrative 277

Adapting the Narrative 285

CHAPTER Page

Performing the Narrative 297

Coda 308

WORKS CITED 314

INTRODUCTION

It is as if we dwell in the unique time between a traumatic event and its symbolic impact, like in those brief moments after we are deeply cut, and before the full extent of the pain strikes us—it is open how the events will be symbolized, what their symbolic efficiency will be, what acts they will be evoked to justify. If nothing else, one can clearly experience yet again the limitation of our democracy: decisions are being made which will affect the fate of all of us, and all of us just wait, aware that we are utterly powerless.

Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real

In the wake of September 11^th, a national poll indicated that 73% of Americans found themselves to be traumatized to some degree by the attacks on the World Trade Center (Bennett 178). In the events that transpired that day and the aftermath that continued during the following months, America experienced a moment of national trauma that would irrevocably alter the nation’s political complexion. The psychological impact was equally profound. For those directly experiencing the attacks and those witnessing them on television, 9/11 initiated a radical, albeit temporary, disruption in the continuity of the nation’s political narrative, a narrative whose extraordinary resiliency depended in large part on its capacity to deny Americans crucial channels for political engagement. For just a moment, before the media and the state initiated aggressive projects of narrative production, Americans identified themselves not as citizens or consumers but as

survivors and witnesses, subjects whose frames of reference had been temporarily ungrounded by the traumatic event. This study searches for moments like these, in which individuals—survivors, witnesses, even readers of fiction—by confronting and accessing trauma achieve critical distance from the political narratives produced by the state.

Understanding the psychological and political mechanics of trauma is imperative here in the twenty-first century, as institutional power is more and more a part of our everyday lives. The state, whether through invasive surveillance measures or urban planning policies that displace the poor, is increasingly stitching itself into the fabric of our homes and our cities. The following chapters explore the psychological and political consequences of this process, seeing literature as a narrative medium that both represents political trauma and provides opportunities for readers to distance themselves from state- affirming political narratives. Trauma narratives are always sites of political strife; on the one hand, it is important for the survivor to preserve her memory of the traumatic event, as confronting the event, at some point, is crucial to processes of “working through” trauma. Meanwhile, the state, engaged in producing and disseminating discourses that justify and legitimate its political position, begins the work of co-opting and rewriting these narratives, thereby depriving the survivor of her memory of the event. Jenny Edkins explains that these institutional trauma narratives serve, first, to depoliticize history and, second, as justification for the future use of political authority (Trauma 172). This study uses

literature to describe these processes, seeking to understand how political trauma is perpetrated on individuals and to deconstruct the inherently traumatic relationship between individuals and institutional power.

What is institutional power? The aftermath of 9/11, which I discuss in greater detail in chapter one, provides us with a working definition of this term. After the attacks on the World Trade Center, Americans quickly found themselves the objects of a narrative campaign—waged by the media, by the White House, and by private interests capitalizing on the growing patriotic fervor—that required the support of a unified-under-one-flag American public. The convergence of these three bodies—the media, the state, and the private sector—provides a good example of my use of the term “institution.” Institutional power represents the networked space generated by the convergence of multiple institutional bodies; the goals of each institutional body are the same: to encourage consumer participation and to cultivate political unity, and the two often go hand in hand.

Because of the pervasiveness and, often, transparency of institutional power, best described through what philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls “societies of control” (“Postscript” 4), it is often difficult to determine exactly where and how institutional power is at work. To parse out these concepts, I draw from the writings of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri, whose work on “biopolitics” and “biopower” I use to clarify the workings of institutional power.

As a work of literary scholarship, this study sees contemporary novels and films as sites of resistance, where the processes of political trauma are laid bare and where readers may establish critical positions vis-à-vis institutional power.

Many of these works utilize experimental formal strategies to simulate the experience of trauma, and I am most interested in how literature, through these strategies, may position readers outside of otherwise pervasive mainstream narratives. The following pages pose questions that are vital to our understanding of trauma, politics, and literature in the era of biopolitics. First, what is the substance of trauma in a post-9/11 world and how do individuals cope with trauma when the traumatic referent—the trauma-provoking-entity—is dispersed and faceless? How does the personal intersect the public experience of trauma and how are institutional politics capable of producing traumatic encounters? Is it possible to establish oneself outside of institutional narratives? What role does literature play in communicating the experience of trauma? Where is political trauma enacted? How is space intertwined with trauma? The following chapters take on these difficult questions, offering not just new readings of contemporary American literature, but readings that aim to reveal the spatializing potentials of narrative-based media.