The American university in the aftermath of 9/11 in Susan Choi’s novel A Person of Interest
The American university in the aftermath of 9/11 in Susan Choi’s novel A Person of Interest

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes Susan Choi’s A Person of Interest (2008) as a work of post-9/11 campus fiction. Personal grudges, hidden motives, and past secrets take on a new dimension in the atmosphere of suspicion, where even a respectable citizen becomes a suspect. The novel serves as a microcosm of the post-9/11 world, portraying a space where the ordinary transforms into a landscape of fear and distrust. By examining it through moral panic theory, the following analysis demonstrates how surveillance invades personal privacy, stripping individuals of their humanity and reducing them to suspects. The protagonist Lee’s once private, unremarkable life becomes a spectacle for public scrutiny, with his movements, relationships, and past subjected to relentless investigation.

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