Dr. Rob Franciosi

How have the attacks of September 11, 2001, entered our cultural, political, and literary memory? Often described as the defining moment of our times, the day when “everything changed,” 9/11 has been the subject of a steady stream of books, plays, poems, and films. 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 literary efforts to understand, interpret, commemorate, and even exploit them.