Editor's Introduction: The Haunting and the Haunted

According to Gordon, "haunting is one way in which abusive systems of power make themselves known and their impacts felt in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over and done with" (xvi); understanding haunting is therefore crucial for "grasping the nature of our society and for changing it" (27). Fragmented Lives, Border Crossings, and the Politics of Exile" (2001), Suheir Hammad's "first writing since" (2001), Dima Hilal's "america" (2004), Mohja Kahf's "We Will Continue Like Twin Towers" (2003), and Naomi Shihab Nye's "Letter from Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab-American Poet: To Any Would-Be Terrorists" (2001) articulate a vision of history, memory, and identity that, like haunting itself, breaks down divisions between past and present, "us" and "them," what happens "over here" and what happens "over there."