Pamela Creed

Pamela M Creed earned a doctorate from the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. Her dissertation, titled Myth, Memory and Militarism: The Evolution of an American War Narrative, explored narrative connections between macro and micro levels. In particular, it examined the relationship of culture, emotion and agency in the dramatic construction, mobilization and acceptance of an American war narrative and later of individual counter narratives. The study takes the events of 9.11 as a traumatic trigger and then demonstrates that the storylines in the 9.11/Iraq War narrative patterns were anchored more in American mythological constructs, public memories and militarism than content about terrorism or Iraq. In the second phase of her research she analyzed micro-narratives from veterans of the Iraq War by exploring how they understood the presented storylines. She attempted to discern the strength of the cultural influence inherent in the narrative patterns. Her research focused on locating shifts in attitudes or perceptions, which may have resulted in the repositioning of self or discourse. Throughout the study she examined the role of emotions, particularly anger, pride (honor), shame and humiliation. Drawing on work done by Lindner and Hartling, Pamela located indicators of four types of humiliation in the 9.11/Iraq War narrative patterns that occur repeatedly until the March 2003 invasion. She then analyzed those patterns in the context of a humiliation cycle and conflict escalation. Pamela has also done research with Joseph Montville on the relationship between the North and South in the United States. She studied the historical Northern narrative of insult and disdain toward the South in an attempt to enhance understanding of the historical alienation between the white North and the white South. This relationship has been marked by cultural, religious, and intellectual tensions, which have created an identity-based split where resentments against Northern insult and exploitation, once strictly centered in the South, are now dispersed throughout the United States in the so-called 'red' states. Pamela presented this work with Joseph Montville in April 2005 at the Esalen Institute Center for Theory and Research. She also presented this study at University of Massachusetts, Boston in November 2005 at the "New Generation of Ideas" conference. Pamela holds a M.Ed. from the University of Maryland and a BA in History from the American University in Washington, DC. In the summer of 2006 she studied local educational policy for disadvantaged populations under a Fulbright Scholarship in South Africa. She currently resides in Belgrade.

Please see here:

• The Dominant American Narrative between 9/11/01 and the Invasion of Iraq, an introduction to a potential dissertation, presented at the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006. The dissertation aims to analyze the dominant American narrative between 9/11/01 and the invasion of Iraq through positioning theory and the literature on humiliation and conflict.

• An American Conflict of Mind: Competing Narratives of National Identity and Values, 2007.