unburdening post 9/11 cultural trauma in Amy Waldman's the submission

1. A B D U L R A S H I D
L E C T U R E R I N E N G L I S H , B A H A D U R S U B C A M P U S L AY YA H
Unburdening Post 9/11 Cultural Trauma
in Amy Weldman’s The Submission

2. Outline of the Presentation
 Introduction
 Theoretical Framework
 Data Analysis
 Findings and Conclusion

3. Introduction
 Cultural trauma is usually considered as a socially
mediated power structure. A sense of painful injury
towards collective identity is often associated with some
catastrophic social event (Alexander, 2012).
 In the construction of this process, the social agents play
an important role. Thus, such victims are socially
established ones. The responsibility of such victimization
is attributed to particular sections of individuals/
communities.
 Consequently, the community's sense of identity
solidifies or is disrupted. The incident of 9/ 11 has been
of both cultural and psychic trauma in nature for many
people in New York City.

4. continue………..
 It is essential to keep in mind that personal trauma
and cultural trauma have different domains.
 Psychic trauma refers to serious wounds and their
psychological impact on mind.
 Whereas, cultural trauma is regarded as a
phenomenon seriously perceived danger to collective
consciousness of a group.

5. 9/11 as incident of Cultural Trauma
 Alexander (2004) refers cultural trauma as the situation
of community members who have been subject to a
dreadful event. Such dreadful events create a sense of
consciousness among the victims which affect their
change the identity of that group majorly.
 The incident of 9/11 proved the both psychic and
culturally traumatic in nature. Those who witnessed the
horrifying incident of 9/11 took it as a psychic trauma.
Those who took the incident of 9/11 as a wound against
the American as a collective group are categorized as
victims of cultural trauma. The atrocities of war and
cultural trauma have emerged as one of the most
pressing themes and influenced post 9/11 fiction.

6. Unburdening………….
 Kerman (2017) referred unburdening as the relative
freedom in professional endeavors without
contextualizing race/ethnicity/gender representation/
cultural trauma or any other burden of representation.
Having achieved these measures of success and freedom
from the burden of representation, and enduring
separateness is the ultimate outcome of art and fiction.
 Our approach towards cultural trauma is to view that
how Waldman attempted to unburden the incident of
9/11 in her novel The Submission.
 Our study explores how trauma exposes, tests, and
reconstitutes human cartographies.

7. Theoretical Model of Analysis
 Alexander (2012) in Trauma a Social Theory suggested
that social system may face some experiences of massive
disruption due to which not only societies becomes
traumatic but social institutions also fail to represent
these socially traumatic experience. Schools as social
institution fail in how to educate such miseries.
Governments feel insecure and undergo a serious crisis
of legitimation. Economic systems are intensely
disrupted and fail to provide the model of basic
necessities. These traumatic disruptions are and
fundamental in nature but these problems cannot be
essentially traumatic at collective level.

8. Continue……..
 For traumas to arise at collective level, it is necessary
that social crises must be felt and represented as
cultural crises. As events are one thing;
representations of these events are quite another.
Trauma is not the result of a group experiencing
pain. It is the result of this acute discomfort entering
into the core of the collectivity’s sense of its own
identity. Collective actors “decide” to represent social
pain as a fundamental threat to their sense of who
they are, where they came from, and where they
want to go.

9. Continue……..
Cultural
classification: the
creation of
Trauma as New
Master Narrative
The Nature of the
pain
Institutional
Arenas
Religious
Aesthetic
Legal
Nature of the
victim
Relation of the
trauma victim to
the wider
audience
Attribution of
Reponsibility

10. Data Analysis---An Overview of the Novel
 The Submission by Amy Weldman is a fictional story set
in New York. A jury is held to decide winner of
architectural design for the 9/11 memorials after two
years of the attack. Claire Burwell a jury member tries to
persuade other jury members to vote for the Garden as a
symbol of memorials of 9/11. In the meantime, Ariana
Montagu, an artist from New York, is convincing for a
structure named the Void which is a huge and gloomy in
appearance. Claire suggests that Ariana recognizes the
designer of the Void and blames Ariana as biased.
However, Paul refuses declare any of these designs as
winner unless there is a tie.

11. Data Analysis……………Continue…
 Ultimately, the garden as a design for the memorial
of 9/11 wins which was designed by Muhammad
Khan- an American Muslim. The central problem in
the novel, around which the entire plot revolves is
that the winner, whose design was submitted
anonymously (as the process demands), turns out to
be an American architect named Mohammed Khan.
This news, which suggests to the jury that the winner
is most likely Muslim, provokes a wide range of
responses from various jury members.

12. Unburdening of Individual Trauma…….Claire as Representative
 As compared to other jury members, Claire
deliberates herself distinctive: on the following
reasons “They’d all lost, of course — lost the sense
that their nation was vulnerable; lost their city’s
most recognizable icons; maybe lost friends or
acquaintances. But only she had lost her husband
(3).
 Despite the fact the she lost her husband as a result
of the incident of 9/11, she still favors the design of
garden which stands for peace and harmony.

13. Unburdening Cultural Trauma….Ariana as a Representative.
 Ariana symbolizes the sense of collective victimhood.
She extends herself as a representative of the whole
nation. Despite of not sharing any proximate ties
with those who were direct victim of the attacks;
people like Ariana claims for very strict actions.
 On this ground Claire defines Ariana with
inconsistent impact- feeling seriously what is not
personal. Ariana act as a character of cultural or
mass consciousness.

14. Findings and Conclusion
 We found that the novel submission suggests a transcultural
understanding and the establishment of a universal human
rights culture.
 Unburdening of cultural trauma could be a healing gesture.
 This is time for pandering multiculturalism and multiple
identities. .
 This —this Mohammed hasn’t technically won the
competition yet. I mean, there are safeguards built in, right,
against criminals. Or terrorists ultimately wins the
competition.
 Waldman accepts the notion of a national collective identity
that was damaged in some way from the attacks, but she is
more concerned with emphasizing to respect for the diversity
of identities by unburdening the burden on 9/11.

15. References
 Alexander, J. C. (2004). Toward a theory of cultural trauma. Cultural trauma and collective
 identity, 76(4), 620-639.
 Balaev, M. (2008). Trends in literary trauma theory. Mosaic: A Journal for the
Interdisciplinary
 Study of Literature, 149-166.
 Bold, C., Knowles, R., & Leach, B. (2002). Feminist memorializing and cultural
 countermemory: The case of Marianne’s Park. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society, 28(1), 125-148.
 Kaplan, E. A. (2005). Trauma culture: The politics of terror and loss in media and literature.
 Rutgers University Press.
 Keeble, A. (2014). The 9/11 Novel: Trauma, Politics and Identity. McFarland.
 Khadem, A. (2015). Stereotypes, Public Debates, and the Limits of Ideology in Amy Waldman’s
 The Submission. Representing 9/11: Trauma, Ideology, and Nationalism in Literature, Film,
and Television, 67.
 Simpson, D. (2006). 9/11: The culture of commemoration. University of Chicago Press.