Katie Heslop

Biography	My PhD aims to reassess the cultural and political implications of 9/11 as a historical event. I examine the highly complex temporal mapping at work in a selection of 9/11 novels, in order to argue that these texts de-exceptionalise the attacks, and place them within a broader context of global violence: of which America is not merely a victim, but also a perpetrator. I use close-reading, alongside a range of situationist and Marxist critical theories, to suggest that the works of Pynchon, Gibson and Moshfegh, among other 21st Century novelists, challenge the simplistic temporal figuring of 9/11 as vast chasm divided into ‘before’ and ‘after.’ The relationship between 9/11 and temporality is a topic I pursued during my MA in Literary Studies at Durham (2021-2022). I completed my dissertation on dramatic irony and the terror attacks, and assessed the extent to which prolepsis influences the experience of reading a post 9/11 text. During my undergraduate study at The University of Oxford (Worcester College: 2017-2020), I developed a key interest in, and understanding of, Marxist and postmodern theory, as well as representations of tragedy in the early American novel. My other research interests include visual spectacle, the terror of news media, and alternative histories.

Biography

My PhD aims to reassess the cultural and political implications of 9/11 as a historical event. I examine the highly complex temporal mapping at work in a selection of 9/11 novels, in order to argue that these texts de-exceptionalise the attacks, and place them within a broader context of global violence: of which America is not merely a victim, but also a perpetrator. I use close-reading, alongside a range of situationist and Marxist critical theories, to suggest that the works of Pynchon, Gibson and Moshfegh, among other 21st Century novelists, challenge the simplistic temporal figuring of 9/11 as vast chasm divided into ‘before’ and ‘after.’
The relationship between 9/11 and temporality is a topic I pursued during my MA in Literary Studies at Durham (2021-2022). I completed my dissertation on dramatic irony and the terror attacks, and assessed the extent to which prolepsis influences the experience of reading a post 9/11 text. During my undergraduate study at The University of Oxford (Worcester College: 2017-2020), I developed a key interest in, and understanding of, Marxist and postmodern theory, as well as representations of tragedy in the early American novel.
My other research interests include visual spectacle, the terror of news media, and alternative histories.