Flânerie and the Transnational Deterritorialization of 9/11 in Teju Cole’s Open City
Even though Teju Cole’s debut novel, Open City, has often been analyzed within the spectrum of themes such as racialization and ethnicity, its relevance in the post-9/11 canon is worthy of attention. As such, this contribution seeks to examine the salience of September 11 and the role of the protago...
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| Format: | article |
| Publication Date: | 2022 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) |
| Repository: | e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/56984 |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10017/56984 https://dx.doi.org/10.37536/reden.2022.4.1678 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Flaneur Mourning Collective memory Memorialization Post 9/11 novel Historia Antropología Literatura History Anthropology Literature |
| Summary: | Even though Teju Cole’s debut novel, Open City, has often been analyzed within the spectrum of themes such as racialization and ethnicity, its relevance in the post-9/11 canon is worthy of attention. As such, this contribution seeks to examine the salience of September 11 and the role of the protagonist, as post-9/11 flâneur, considering how Cole’s novel reframes the political and transnational implications of 9/11 drawing from flânerie to offer a wider viewpoint on the national and interracial implications of the attacks. As the article aims to show, the narrative adopts flânerie as a strategy to ponder on the post-9/11 phenomenon memorializing the attacks in New York and consequently reterritorializing terrorism in Brussels to engage in an international perspective. Aligning with the contention that post-9/11 narratives have been concerned with revising the city as the origin of a discussion on the attacks, the essay aims to show how Cole leans toward a universalist view of the event so that the novel engages with the transcontinental impact of 9/11. This article's ultimate intent is to consider the flâneur as the thread that guides to a broader challenging discussion on the significance of 9/11 respatializing the consequences of the terrorist attacks beyond the United States. |
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