The uses of a national wound: Reflecting Absence, trauma and the global war on terror

Authors

  • Tomoaki Morikawa University of Hawaii at Manoa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59391/inscriptions.v2i1.24

Keywords:

The War on Terror, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Ground Zero, Trace

Abstract

At the World Trade Center site in New York City where the terrorist attacks happened on September 11, 2001, the memorial called Reflecting Absence is now standing.  Instead of covering up the physical and psychological wound of 9/11, Reflecting Absence structurally incorporates the trauma of 9/11 as the memorial’s framing structure.  In this paper, I focus on the link between the trauma of 9/11 and Reflecting Absence.  More specifically, I examine the latter as the expression of the former to reveal this link.  In so doing, this paper also identifies what kind of role Reflecting Absence is potentially playing in the post-9/11 American society.  By teasing out the ways in which this memorial evokes the trauma of 9/11 for visitors, this paper discusses the politics in which Reflecting Absence has been engaged as an apparatus of memory.

Author Biography

Tomoaki Morikawa, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Tomoaki Morikawa, a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, has a special interest in the fields of historic memory, Museum Studies, spatial theory, and psychoanalysis in the context of U.S. history and culture. His research engages the contentious nature of the rebuilt Ground Zero complex in New York City.    

References

Doss, Erika. “De Oppresso Liber and Reflecting Absence: Ground Zero Memorials and the War on Terror,” American Quarterly 65, no. 1 (March 2013): 203-14.

Krauss, Rosalind. The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986.

LaCapra, Dominic. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Meier, Richard. “Filling the Void; To Rebuild or Not: Architects Respond.” New York Times, September 23, 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/magazine/filling-the-void-to-rebuild-or-not-architects-respond.html

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. “A Vision for Lower Manhattan.” October 11, 2002. http://www.renewnyc.com/content/avisionforlowermanhattan.pdf.

---. “About Us.” Accessed October 5, 2018. http://www.renewnyc.com/overlay/AboutUs/.

---. “The International Freedom Center: Content and Governance Report.” September 23, 2005. http://www.renewnyc.com/content/pdfs/IFC_submission.pdf.

---. “World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition.” Accessed October 5, 2018. http://wtcsitememorial.org/pdf/LMDC_Guidelines_english.pdf.

The White House. “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People.” September 20, 2001. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.

---. “V. Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Accessed October 5, 2018. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/print/sectionV.html.

Young, James. “Inside the Jury: An Interview with James Young.” Architectural Record. January 21, 2004. https://archive.org/stream/architecturalrec192janewy/architecturalrec192janewy_djvu.txt.

Downloads

Published

2019-01-21