How have the attacks of September 11, 2001, entered our cultural memory? Often described as the defining moment of our times, the day when “everything changed,” for twenty-five years 9/11 has been the subject of a steady stream of books, films, commemorations, and memorials. In this course we will consider how some of these texts reflect the ways in which we remember traumatic events. Our approach will be roughly chronological, beginning with that September morning and moving from the attacks and their aftermath to subsequent efforts to understand, interpret, and commemorate them.

Session 1: “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?”

Session 2: 9/11 Through the Camera’s Eye

Session 3: 9/11 on Page and Screen

Session 4: Building Memory

Recommended texts are available online or at the Calvin University campus store:

• A Place of Remembrance by Allison Blais, ISBN-13: 978-1426216107
• 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, ISBN-13: 978-0805094213

Subject: history

Rob Franciosi is Professor Emeritus of English and Honors at Grand Valley State University, where he taught courses on American literature and culture, as well as interdisciplinary approaches to the Holocaust. As a child he was taken by his New York taxi driver grandfather to the site where the World Trade Center foundation was being dug. And during his undergraduate years at NYU the Twin Towers always loomed in the southern distance. These personal links prompted him to offer several courses on 9/11 and to write several essays about his memories of that pair of monoliths.