Narratives of traumatization history knowledge and fictional representation in select post 9 /11 American fictions

Abstract

This thesis examines post-9/11 fiction by American, Muslim, and diasporic women from South Asian, Arab, and Western backgrounds, interrogating trauma through a decolonial feminist lens. It challenges Euro-American trauma paradigms that universalise trauma as an individual, psychological phenomenon, marginalising gendered and racialised experiences. Through a qualitative, interpretive analysis of six novels—Saffron Dreams, Burnt Shadows, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Once in a Promised Land, The Submission, and Self Storage—the study develops a feminist trauma aesthetic, reconceptualising trauma as a socially mediated, affectively circulated experience inscribed on racialised and gendered bodies. Drawing on Sara Ahmed, Ann Cvetkovich, Judith Butler, and Homi Bhabha, it highlights how these narratives transform trauma into collective resilience and resistance, exposing epistemic silencing in mainstream trauma theory. The thesis positions these works as a transnational archive of affective justice, resilience, and historical reclamation, foregrounding embodied pain and communal survival within specific sociopolitical contexts. By destabilising hegemonic discourses, this research advances a decolonial feminist framework that redefines trauma’s materiality and affect in post-9/11 literature.