America! America!

Bridger, Barbara (2002) America! America! Leviathan Quarterly, 5. pp. 87-90. ISSN XXXX-XXXX

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Abstract / Summary

In the first person narrative of 'America! America!' the events of September 11th are 'recalled' by a dying female voice experiencing 'jouissance'- a little death within a greater death, a ravishment of grief and regret for her own death and that of others. Both the text itself (written in response to September 11th),and its subsequent development as a film project, form part of Bridger’s research into language, gender and identity: in this instance, with particular concern for the physical embodiment of emotion.

A digital film version of the text was commissioned by the curators of Exeter's tEXt Festival 03. In this 20-minute colour film, also titled 'America! America!', the dying woman’s ‘voice’ is edited and layered to form a multiple chorus of voices that reflects back on itself as, moment to moment, it recalls the terrors of the near past and sets them against the ravishing present. 'America! America!' was screened, during the festival in May 2003, at Exeter Phoenix and Devon Arts Centre. Bridger was responsible for script, camera work, direction and editing.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: As well as being published in Leviathan Quarterly, this text won the Writers Incorporated Prose Writer of the Year Award 2002. Bridger gave a full public reading of it at the awards ceremony (Barbican, London, November 2002) and it was printed as the title piece in the 'winners'anthology'.
ISBN: 00000000
ISSN: XXXX-XXXX
Depositing User: Barbara Bridger
Date Deposited: 26 Aug 2014 11:53
Last Modified: 23 Nov 2023 13:12
URI: https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/459
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