11-S: The Overflows of The New Global Empire

Undoubtedly, 9/11 represents a moment of inflection in the history of the United States. With the exception of the invasion of the air space back in time in faraway Pearl Harbour, the United States had never been the object of attacks in its territory. 9/11 placed the American nation in an unprecedented position of vulnerability and aroused justified painful reactions, as much as vehement protests in the face of what was considered a completely unjustified attack. “The barbarian invasions” demanded a profound revision of the global order. In this work I propose to analyze the tension between the global relations and the local reality, and the ways in which the apparent homogeneity of globalization cracks when the “empire”—made up of the territories formerly colonized—counterattacks in global times. The corpus for the analysis consists of the following novels: The Falling Man by Don DeLillo (2007), Saturday by Ian McEwan (2005) and A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus (2006).