This research explores the discourses of Muslims that had emerged in The Star, Daily News, Cape Argus and New York Times before and after the bombings of the New York City’s World Trade Centre Towers on September 11, 2001. This was a qualitative study that analysed a total of 176 articles from the various newspapers from July 2001 to November 2001. A discourse analytic approach was used as the method of analysis within a broad depth hermeneutic framework. The depth hermeneutic approach emphasises the analysis of the socio-historical context in order to understand how certain constructions of Muslims had historically emerged. Therefore, this study traces the construction of Muslims and the media historically. The results indicate that the dominant discourses of Muslims that have emerged are that ‘Muslims are fundamentalists’, ‘Muslims are violent’, ‘ Muslims cannot be trusted’ and the depiction of Muslims in conflicting terms in relation to the West, namely: ‘Muslims versus the Western World’. The various sub-themes that had emerged are as follows; ‘Muslims are a force to be feared,’ ‘Islam teaches violence’ and that ‘Muslims are inhumane and uncivilised. The ideological representation of Muslims within the texts as the out-group when compared to the West is emphasised through these discourses. A comparison of the various newspapers portrayal of Muslims in the media before and after September 11, 2001, shows that the Cape Argus depicts a more positive representation of Muslims in both instances. The findings reveal that Daily News, The Star and the New York Times present a more negative view of Muslims before and after the events of September 11, 2001.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), Canada began the process of adjusting to the new security realities. It immediately became apparent that a preeminent issue that Canada would have to address was border security, especially the matter of maintaining a secure and open border with the United States (US). Canada has always recognized the necessity of an open border with the US but 9/11 reinforced just how vulnerable the border was to events beyond its control. Something needed to be done in order to sustain this vital trading relationship.<p>This thesis examines Canadas response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 but more specifically, Canadas efforts to maintain an open and secure border with the US in the immediate months and years following the attacks. This thesis is a case study of Canadas political efforts in that regard. The central focus is on Canadas initiation, negotiation and signing of the Smart Border Declaration (SBD) with the US on December 12, 2001. The purpose here is to examine the driving factors that lead Canada to engage in the smart borders process with the US and assess the importance of them.<p>This thesis concludes that Canadas response to the border crisis has revealed three significant trends in Canadas foreign and security policy. First, the SBD serves as a demonstration that Canadas national security has been significantly influenced by the security of economics and in particular, the special trade relationship that exists between Canada and the US. Secondly, the SBD is a familiar case of Canada taking the initiative in a North American policy matter and achieving an impressive policy triumph. Thirdly, it shows that the SBD represented an equally familiar instance of Canada taking action to provide certain assurances to the US that the security of Canada and the US is indivisible. In essence, it was a significant effort to appear as a reliable and responsible neighbour to the US.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), Canada began the process of adjusting to the new security realities. It immediately became apparent that a preeminent issue that Canada would have to address was border security, especially the matter of maintaining a secure and open border with the United States (US). Canada has always recognized the necessity of an open border with the US but 9/11 reinforced just how vulnerable the border was to events beyond its control. Something needed to be done in order to sustain this vital trading relationship.<p>This thesis examines Canadas response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 but more specifically, Canadas efforts to maintain an open and secure border with the US in the immediate months and years following the attacks. This thesis is a case study of Canadas political efforts in that regard. The central focus is on Canadas initiation, negotiation and signing of the Smart Border Declaration (SBD) with the US on December 12, 2001. The purpose here is to examine the driving factors that lead Canada to engage in the smart borders process with the US and assess the importance of them.<p>This thesis concludes that Canadas response to the border crisis has revealed three significant trends in Canadas foreign and security policy. First, the SBD serves as a demonstration that Canadas national security has been significantly influenced by the security of economics and in particular, the special trade relationship that exists between Canada and the US. Secondly, the SBD is a familiar case of Canada taking the initiative in a North American policy matter and achieving an impressive policy triumph. Thirdly, it shows that the SBD represented an equally familiar instance of Canada taking action to provide certain assurances to the US that the security of Canada and the US is indivisible. In essence, it was a significant effort to appear as a reliable and responsible neighbour to the US.

This study uses individual media dependency (IMD) to examine student dependency on the media before and during the attacks of September 11. A content analysis of media journals kept by a group of university students during the week of September 11 confirmed the existence of the IMD relationship, a finding that adds to the methodological breadth of IMD research. Goal scope, which is composed of the understanding, orientation, and play goals narrowed to the goal of social understanding on September 11 only to expand outwards to pre-September 11 levels by the end of that week. The theory postulates goal scope to be comprehensive, but student-identified reasons for seeking out the media during the week of September 11 were not fully explained by goal scope. Dependence on news mediated sources followed the pattern of goal scope with students articulating a tremendous dependence during the attacks, only to be followed with a sharp decline in time spent with news media by the end of the week. Contrary to hypothesis 4, referent scope did not narrow at all during that week. However, the media diaries revealed television was the referent of choice among students for information about the attacks. Time spent with television followed the patterns of goal scope and dependence on news mediated sources—a sharp increase in time spent with television was followed by a comparable decline in time spent. Student reflection papers were analyzed to understand why students returned so quickly to former media consumption patterns. Weariness with the reports and images surrounding the attacks, disappointment with the lack of new information, and the obligations of being a student were among the reasons given in the reflection papers. Despite the quick return to pre-attack levels of media consumption, students wrote that the media presentations of the attacks had broad cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects.

<p>This dissertation interrogates the ways in which the ethical rhetoric following September 11th, 2001 (particularly that of the administration of U.S. President George Bush) and contemporary globalization (which Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have called "Empire") implicate one other, as well as the ways in which these interlinked discourses are currently shaping the post-9/11 global "ethical climate" and its universalized human subject. Drawing upon Jacques Derrida's concept of "hauntology" which he introduces in Specters of Marx (1994), the main argument of the thesis is that the dominant post-9/11 ethical rhetoric is a specter of Empire, such that it is both a symptom of and a particularly influential force-of-law shaping the "Spirit" of contemporary globalization/Empire. The thesis claims that in their shared universalism, neo-Hegelian remainders of idealism, and theocratic impulses to contain and ethicopolitically manage the entire world, globalization/Empire and its most serious recent symptoms-Bush's post-9/11 ethical rhetoric and the global war on terror--contain suicidal auto-deconstructive tendencies that threaten to destroy themselves from within in spite of their utopic visions of themselves. Finally, the dissertation investigates some of the key spectral remainders of "9/11" and contemporary ethical thought which contradict and/or corroborate the dominant post-9/11 discourse of Empire and its universalized ethico-political human subject.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks attributed the September 11 attacks on the U.S. homeland to the terrorists' exploitation of "deep institutional failings." These findings are similar to the conclusions of the Presidential Commission investigating the 1986 Challenger accident and the Columbia Accident Investigative Board (2003). Generally Commissions aim to provide the fullest possible account of events contributing to the catastrophe under investigation and to identify lessons learned, but avoid specifying responsibility and accountability. For this reason, various commission reports have been criticized for being abstract and shallow. These criticisms make a valid point. How commissions make sense of failures has real consequences in terms of preventing reoccurrences. If these accounts do not satisfactorily address the question, How did this happen?, clear prophylactic measures for the future also remain unspecified. This dissertation calls into question the usefulness of current constructions of system failure that focus solely on the abstract role of the institution or system in creating the conditions for failure. For the purpose of acquiring insight into our current narratives of system failure and accountability, the 9/11 Public Hearing Transcripts are analyzed. This research is a qualitative textual analysis of excerpts from the Transcripts related to both pre-9/11 intelligence failures and accountability. Using Weick's view of sensemaking to gain a better understanding of our current constructions of system failure/resilience and accountability, this research identifies the dominant constructions of pre-9/11 intelligence failures and accountability that are documented in the 9/11 Public Hearing Transcripts and the sensemaking resources that reinforce and solidify these constructions. Verbatim excerpts from the 9/11 documents are included to support claims. The theory of autopoiesis, a form of systems theory, is introduced as an alternative resource for constructing narratives on system-environment relationships and accountability. Leadership practices that foster system resilience and individual accountability for system-wide performance are presented.

The TV show is a central focus of American life, one that not only reflects but also produces social imaginaries for the American audience that support the way people interact and engage with reality. It is the nation’s most influential storyteller, which dominates the nation’s imagination and understanding of reality. This dissertation explores the political and cultural meanings of four TV shows from the George W. Bush era: The West Wing (1999-2007), Deadwood (2004-06), The Wire (2002-08) and Heroes (2006-10). In examining these TV shows, this dissertation aims to shed light on both the origins of the state of exception, its conduct, its purpose, and the possibility of meaningful critique of or resistance to the state of exception. Chapter I discusses The West Wing, focusing on President Bartlet’s decision-making process regarding the assassination of Abdul Shareef, so as to elucidate the decisive actions of a sovereign figure in a state of exception. Chapter II explores Deadwood’s resurrection of the nineteenth-century mining camp in our twenty-first century, in terms of the capitalist state of exception. In discussing the show’s portrayal of the conflicts among the main characters, this chapter reveals that the same sovereign logic of exception is innate in the expansion of capitalism. Chapter III examines The Wire’s depiction of rebellious petty-sovereigns such as Major Colvin, Detectives McNulty and Freamon. According to The Wire, the claims of equality are deeply urgent in the bleak reality of contemporary America. With their commitment to equality and justice, the petty-sovereigns intervene in the bleak reality in their subversive ways. Chapter IV explores Heroes’s rendering of the main characters’ struggles against a fictional national emergency, the Company’s conspiracy to blow up half of New York City. In this chapter, I argue that Heroes portrays a political subject that attempts to constitute itself outside biopolitical sovereign power—what Hardt and Negri would call the advent of the multitude. While explicating the struggles of the main characters, I argue that its limitation in envisioning a new world underscores how contemporary critics fail to see past sovereign politics when they imagine another world. / English

My dissertation focuses on a set of Anglo-American novels that deal with the events of 9/11. Identifying thematic and stylistic differences in the fiction on this topic, I distinguish between novels that represent directly the jolts of trauma in the wake of the attacks, and novels that, while still holding the events as an underlying operative force in the narrative, do not openly represent them but envision their long-term aftermath. The first group of novels comprises Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s The Writing on the Wall (2005), Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). The second one includes Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs (2009), John Updike’s Terrorist (2006) and Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland (2008). Drawing on concepts from trauma theory, particularly by Cathy Caruth and Dominick LaCapra, and combining them with the ethical philosophies of Levinas and Heidegger, I argue that the constructions of 9/11 in Anglo-American fiction are essentially twofold: authors who narrate 9/11 as a tragic human loss in the city of New York turn it into an occasion for an ethical dialogue with the reader and potentially with the “Other,” whereas authors who address 9/11 as a recent sociopolitical event transform it into a goad toward a bitter cultural indictment of the US middle-class, whose ingrained inertia, patriotism and self-righteousness have been either magnified or twisted by the attacks. Considering processes of meaning-making, annihilation, ideological reduction and apathy that arose from 9/11 and its versions, I have identified what could be called, adapting Peter Elbow’s expression from pedagogical studies, the “forked” rhetoric of media and politics, a rhetorical mode in which both discourses are essentially closed, non-hermeneutic, and rooted in the same rationale: exploiting 9/11 for consensus. On the contrary, in what I call the New-Yorkization of 9/11, I highlighted how the situatedness of the public discourses that New Yorkers constructed to tell their own tragedy rescues the Ur-Phaenomenon of 9/11 from the epistemological commodification that intellectual, mediatic and political interpretations forced on it. Furthermore, pointing to the speciousness of arguments that deem 9/11 literature sentimental and unimaginative, I claim that the traumatic literature on the attacks constitutes an example of ethical practice, since it originates from witnesses of the catastrophe, it represents communal solidarity, and it places a crucial demand on the reader as an empathic listener and ethical agent. Ethical counternarratives oppose the ideological simplification of the 9/11 attacks and develop instead a complex counter-rhetoric of emotions and inclusiveness that we could read as a particular instantiation of an ethics of the self and “Other.” As much as the 9/11 “ethical” novels suggest that “survivability” in times of trauma depends on “relationality” (J. Butler), the “cultural” ones unveil the insensitivity and superficiality of the actual US society far away from the site of trauma. The binary framework I use implies that, outside of New York City, 9/11 is narrated neither traumatically (in terms of literary form), nor as trauma (in terms of textual fact). Consequently, on the basis of a spatial criterion and in parallel to the ethical novels, I have identified a category of “cultural” fiction that tackles the events of 9/11 at a distance, spatially and conceptually. In essence, 9/11 brings neither shock, nor promise of regeneration to these peripheral settings, except for Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, a story in which we are returned to a post-9/11 New York where different ethnic subjects can re-negotiate creatively their identities. The cultural novels are ultimately pervaded by a mode of tragic irony that is unthinkable for the ethical novels and that is used in these texts to convey the inanity and hubris of a politically uneducated and naïve America – one that has difficulties to point Afghanistan on a map, or to transcend dualistic schemes of value that embody precisely Bush’s Manichaeism. The potential for cultural pluralism, solidarity and historical memory set up by the New York stories does not ramify into the America that is far away from the neuralgic epicenter of historical trauma. This proves that the traumatizing effects and the related ethical calls engendered by 9/11 remain confined to the New York literature on the topic.

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My dissertation focuses on a set of Anglo-American novels that deal with the events of 9/11. Identifying thematic and stylistic differences in the fiction on this topic, I distinguish between novels that represent directly the jolts of trauma in the wake of the attacks, and novels that, while still holding the events as an underlying operative force in the narrative, do not openly represent them but envision their long-term aftermath. The first group of novels comprises Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s The Writing on the Wall (2005), Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). The second one includes Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs (2009), John Updike’s Terrorist (2006) and Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland (2008). Drawing on concepts from trauma theory, particularly by Cathy Caruth and Dominick LaCapra, and combining them with the ethical philosophies of Levinas and Heidegger, I argue that the constructions of 9/11 in Anglo-American fiction are essentially twofold: authors who narrate 9/11 as a tragic human loss in the city of New York turn it into an occasion for an ethical dialogue with the reader and potentially with the “Other,” whereas authors who address 9/11 as a recent sociopolitical event transform it into a goad toward a bitter cultural indictment of the US middle-class, whose ingrained inertia, patriotism and self-righteousness have been either magnified or twisted by the attacks. Considering processes of meaning-making, annihilation, ideological reduction and apathy that arose from 9/11 and its versions, I have identified what could be called, adapting Peter Elbow’s expression from pedagogical studies, the “forked” rhetoric of media and politics, a rhetorical mode in which both discourses are essentially closed, non-hermeneutic, and rooted in the same rationale: exploiting 9/11 for consensus. On the contrary, in what I call the New-Yorkization of 9/11, I highlighted how the situatedness of the public discourses that New Yorkers constructed to tell their own tragedy rescues the Ur-Phaenomenon of 9/11 from the epistemological commodification that intellectual, mediatic and political interpretations forced on it. Furthermore, pointing to the speciousness of arguments that deem 9/11 literature sentimental and unimaginative, I claim that the traumatic literature on the attacks constitutes an example of ethical practice, since it originates from witnesses of the catastrophe, it represents communal solidarity, and it places a crucial demand on the reader as an empathic listener and ethical agent. Ethical counternarratives oppose the ideological simplification of the 9/11 attacks and develop instead a complex counter-rhetoric of emotions and inclusiveness that we could read as a particular instantiation of an ethics of the self and “Other.” As much as the 9/11 “ethical” novels suggest that “survivability” in times of trauma depends on “relationality” (J. Butler), the “cultural” ones unveil the insensitivity and superficiality of the actual US society far away from the site of trauma. The binary framework I use implies that, outside of New York City, 9/11 is narrated neither traumatically (in terms of literary form), nor as trauma (in terms of textual fact). Consequently, on the basis of a spatial criterion and in parallel to the ethical novels, I have identified a category of “cultural” fiction that tackles the events of 9/11 at a distance, spatially and conceptually. In essence, 9/11 brings neither shock, nor promise of regeneration to these peripheral settings, except for Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, a story in which we are returned to a post-9/11 New York where different ethnic subjects can re-negotiate creatively their identities. The cultural novels are ultimately pervaded by a mode of tragic irony that is unthinkable for the ethical novels and that is used in these texts to convey the inanity and hubris of a politically uneducated and naïve America – one that has difficulties to point Afghanistan on a map, or to transcend dualistic schemes of value that embody precisely Bush’s Manichaeism. The potential for cultural pluralism, solidarity and historical memory set up by the New York stories does not ramify into the America that is far away from the neuralgic epicenter of historical trauma. This proves that the traumatizing effects and the related ethical calls engendered by 9/11 remain confined to the New York literature on the topic.