AN IMPOSSIBLE 9/11 MEMORIAL: ON THE POLITICS OF INTERMEDIALITY IN AMY WALDMAN’S THE SUBMISSION

Abstract

Amy Waldman’s 2011 novel, The Submission, is about an ill-fated architecture contest that chooses a culturally and politically inappropriate winner, Mo, whose design titled “Garden” creates a media frenzy because of its alleged reference to an Islamic paradise for Muslim terrorists. A 9/11 memorial, as public architecture, is supposed to be a symbolic medium for expression, evoking conversations among people sharing this sacred space. The mediatization of Mo’s intermedial architectural conception — his Garden is indebted as much to European modern art as it is to ancient Persian charbagh — is bound to scuttle this intercultural design of selfclaimed political neutrality. By analyzing the ekphrasis of this post-9/11 novel, this essay intends to explore the actor-network of memorial architecture (including design, contest, mediatization and reception), and the political stakes of intermediality when it is conceived to create a spatiotemporality that challenges the culturally-specific schemata of public passion.