Hurricane Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast in 2005, leaving an unparalleled trail of physical destruction. In addition to that damage, the storm wrought massive psychological and cultural trauma on Gulf Coast residents and on America as a whole. Details of the devastation were quickly reported—and misreported—by media outlets, and a slew of articles and books followed, offering a spectrum of socio-political commentaries and analyses. But beyond the reportage and the commentary, a series of f...

This is a comprehensive study of the first decade of literary representations of 9/11, moving from Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers (2003) to Amy Waldman's The Submission (2012). It traces the way literature has dealt with an event that continues to shape world conflict and resonate prominently in the American imagination, and argues that the corpus of literary fiction discussing 9/11 is characterized by a fundamental sense of conflictedness related to the tensions between t...

In post-9/11 America, while all eyes were on Iraq and Afghanistan, The Wire (2002-2008) focused on the dark realities of those living in America's disintegrating industrial heartlands and drug-ravaged neighborhoods, striving against the odds in its schools, hospitals and legal system.With compelling story lines and a memorable cast of characters, The Wire has been compared to the work of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, with a level of detail rarely seen in a dramatic seri...

This book analyzes six key narratives of Hurricane Katrina across literature, film and television from the literary fiction of Jesmyn Ward to the cinema of Spike Lee. It argues that these texts engage with the human tragedy and political fallout of the Katrina crisis while simultaneously responding to issues that have characterized the wider, George W. Bush era of American history; notably the aftermath of 9/11 and ensuing War on Terror. In doing so it recognizes important challenges to tr...