![]() ![]() ![]() “To me, that novel, and especially Obama’s choice to praise it, signaled a change in how at least certain leaders wanted to see America, after seven years deep suspicion about globality. (Photo by James Harden, Library of Congress) She also highlights “Netherland,” a 2008 novel by Joseph O’Neill about a Dutch-British immigrant’s experience in New York, which then-President Barack Obama chose as one of his favorite books in 2009.Ī memorial outside of the Pentagon after the attacks. Another film, “Man on Wire,” premiered in 2008, but focuses on Phillippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center, an event also depicted in the 2009 novel “Let the Great World Spin.” Both of these pieces use Petit’s balancing act as an allegory, Shukla said, and help students understand what has been lost culturally and politically with the physical destruction of an already contested symbol. “9/11 can be seen as both a radical rupture or shift in history, and also a flash point that really crystalized some long-held tensions in the U.S.’s relationship to the rest of the world, particularly in how we think about immigration, diasporas and religious fundamentalism,” Shukla said.Īmong the materials she teaches are films like “United 93,” a documentary-style fiction about the passengers who crashed their hijacked plane into a Pennsylvania field, a sacrifice that likely prevented another attack on a U.S. ![]() But in time, the stories became more complicated, contending with all sorts of divides opened up by the events of that day. Immediately following the attacks, she said, many cultural representations of 9/11 focused on processing grief and trauma. “I think that is one lasting lesson of 9/11: You cannot teach or practice American democracy in a vacuum.” Literature & CultureĪssociate professor of English Sandhya Shukla has taught her “Post 9/11 American Literature and Culture” course on and off since 2008. “We felt it was important to help Americans understand the world and the world to understand Americans and American democracy,” Sabato said. Tragically, that is a part of human nature we are still struggling with,” Sabato said, noting the discrimination and violence Asian Americans have faced since the advent of COVID-19.Īt the Center for Politics, Sabato and his team responded to 9/11 in part by increasing their global programming, eventually launching the Global Perspectives on Democracy program to host groups of all ages, from high school students to high-level government officials, for exchange programs and public events. “Despite Bush’s attempts to lower the temperature and direct Americans’ anger – understandable and righteous anger – toward those who actually committed the attacks, many completely innocent Muslim Americans were targeted and faced discrimination. Bush thanks a firefighter at Ground Zero in New York City. "It seems to me that they still have the capacity to shock."Warning: This gallery contains graphic content.President George W. Those iconic landmarks were destroyed by terrorists on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania lost their lives.National Geographic photo editors have chosen 27 iconic images that tell stories from one of the country's darkest days."I think many of the images from 9/11 still convey the rawness and brutality of the attack," said Clifford Chanin, an executive at New York City's National September 11 Memorial and Museum and editor of Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17, a book of photographs of 9/11 artifacts. Seen in May 2014, the new One World Trade Center rises above New York City, just steps from the location of the former World Trade Center buildings. ![]()
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