The City Since 9/11: Literature, Film, Television ed. by Keith Wilhite

Abstract

Reviewed by: The City Since 9/11: Literature, Film, Television ed. by Keith Wilhite Wayne E. Arnold THE CITY SINCE 9/11: Literature, Film, Television. Edited by Keith Wilhite. Lanham: Fairleigh Dickenson UP. 2016. With specific attention on the metropolis, the last fifteen years have seen several publications regarding changes to the post-9/11 urban environment. The City Since 9/11 joins the list by gathering a diverse collection of essays with an overarching theme of looking at "the city as a contested site" (3). The connection Keith Wilhite establishes between the sixteen articles is their aim to examine "the city as a crossroads for local and global discourses about human precarity, the social life of the public sphere, state power, economic inequality, and future crises" (17); unfortunately, these tasks create such a wide gamut that the collection fails to provide any cohesion. The broadest consistency within these assorted articles is that they do indeed focus on major cities as represented in literature, film, and television after September 11, 2001, but not all the articles provide valuable interpretations of the city since 9/11. There is a sense that these assorted articles lack a direct focus in elucidating how cities have become contested in the wake of post-9/11 transformations. Taken individually, however, there are several articles containing meaningful additions to the discussion of early 21st Century metropolitan literature, film, and television. There are a handful of articles that concentrate on works not often appearing in extended critical analysis. For example, there is noteworthy interpretation of Colson Whitehead's Zone One (2011) and the weaknesses of our cities, while William Gibson's Blue Any Trilogy (2003–10) is examined through its depiction of global homesickness, brought on by the numerous possibilities of the global world. Additionally, the film and television section contains articles that focus on "excess of representation" (199) in Alfonso Cuarón's film, Children of Men (2006), while two Scandinavian crime dramas, The Bridge (2011–13) and The Killing (2007–12) are assessed for their representations of abject space in Copenhagen. Multiple authors do, however, place their attention on some commonly examined metropolitan texts of the 21st Century, including Teju Cole's Open City (2011), Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud Incredibly Close (2005), and Joseph O'Neill's Netherland (2008). Wilhite states that the "since" in the title "implies an examination of the city attuned to its history" (2); yet, the articles often fail to highlight a clearly defined shift in time—there is insufficient contrast or distinction provided for the reader to demonstrate the changed environment after 9/11, and therefore the significance of "since" does not clearly come across as a shift in metropolitan identity. Indeed, certain issues covered were contested topics and themes before 9/11. What we fail to discern through substantial investigation is how things have really changed. It does not strike me that this volume—in its totality—greatly adds to the rapidly expanding analysis of our global cities with an eye to post-9/11 transformations. In fact, there is more than one article contained within where [End Page 132] the phrase "post-9/11" seems inserted merely to create the semblance of fitting in with the title of the book. Perhaps Wilhite's breadth is a tad too far-ranging in the incorporation of certain articles, therefore causing the collection to miss its mark. While all the articles are well written and contain soundly supported arguments, their accumulated failure to provide a broader, more cohesive, understanding of the city since 9/11 leaves this reader wondering why there was need to publish, in book format, these varied articles. Wayne E. Arnold The University of Kitakyushu, Japan Copyright © 2018 Mid-America American Studies Association