9/11 – A New Pearl Harbor? Analogies, Narratives, and Meanings of 9/11 in Civil Society

Abstract

Narrative analyses in the neo-Durkheimian tradition have tended to focus mostly on event-specific narratives in civil society in order to study meanings, strategies, and codes surrounding those events. Analysis of comparisons between the 9/11 attacks and those at Pearl Harbor can build on this tradition by expanding the discursive locations from which to understand the construction of meanings in civil society. Through examining specific analogies, narratives, and metanarratives, I show how the comparison of 9/11 to the attacks on Pearl Harbor has led to varying meanings of 9/11 based on the employment of various genre based narratives and metanarratives of the events and the nation.