ABSTRACT
This essay discusses three generically diverse pieces of writing that are critical of U.S.-American foreign policy and society since 9/11: Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side (2008), Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010), and Juliana Spahr’s thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs (2005). These texts—journalistic, novelistic, and poetic—are dissenting, critical, and counter-hegemonic depictions of the direction that the USA has taken since 9/11. They have been written, marketed, and successfully sold to well-established sectors of the reading public. While there is a significant body of scholarly work that focuses on how such examples of post-9/11 writing offer discourses counter to those perpetuated by top policymakers and mainstream media outlets, little attention has been paid to the commodified nature of such writerly dissent. In my analyses of these texts, I explore the tensions and ambivalences regarding issues of unpopularity and popularity that affect writers who strive for political impact while they participate in a market logic that inevitably dampens the blow.
