After Iraq: War, Experience and the Legacies of American Imperialism

Researcher: Cari Lake
Supervised by: Dr. Mark Storey
Home department: English and Comparative Literature
Expected start date: 30/05/2016
Expected end date: 08/07/2016

I am a recent graduate of the English department and my research project is a continuation of certain topics I studied during my time at Warwick, such as narratives of U.S Imperialism. The research project will hopefully serve as a foundation for my MA course next year. My research interests predominantly lie in contemporary American literature, particularly in fiction dealing with the individual's place in shifting urban environments. I am also interested in British devolutionary fiction and Anglo-Welsh literature, particularly the rewriting of nationhood, identity, and the development of the individual in the industrial novel.

War stories are an integral part of culture and literature, as civilisations have always strived to document their greatness and significance through epic verse, art, and poetry. The military activity of the United States provides no exception to this, as a multitude of other art forms (films, documentaries, photography, as well as the developments in media and communications) have been used to document the experience of war in modern times. In spite of the omnipresent media footages embedded into our virtual consumption, the experience of war is never fully understood by those back home, thus exacerbating the isolation of the returning soldier. My intention is to consider cultural responses to the Iraq War, by focusing upon the psychological and physical wounds that returning soldiers grapple with and of the significance of the . However, the focus of this project is to consider American responses in particular, and thus I will attempt to evaluate the personal narratives I have selected for my project (the short stories of Phil Klay, Brian Turner's poetry, the photography of Nina Berman, as well as Clint Eastwood's American Sniper) as specifically 'American' responses.