9/11 Archives - Public Seminar

North America

9/10,11, and 12

The world was bigger then. Our two oceans provided us with the same illusion of protection our grandparents enjoyed

September 11, 2021 • by Ryan James Girdusky

It's not just that I am a man who was born and raised in New York City. It's not just that my family goes back generations here: my dad and his two brothers were cops who patrolled its streets, and my mom worked on the 97th floor of Tower One. ...

Columnists

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

We need a functioning government. National commissions rarely solve the problems they are formed to address–and often, they create new ones

June 2, 2021 • by Claire Potter

On Friday, May 9, the Senate failed to pass a bill establishing a bipartisan federal commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, an insurrection intended to block Joe Biden from being inaugurated as president. The cloture vote was 54-35, six votes shy of the number needed to bring the ...

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

Feature

The Inconspicuous, Understated, Wise, 9/11 Memorial of the Union Square Subway Station

An Everyday New York Masterpiece

September 11, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Four years ago, I published this piece on Deliberately Considered. We are reposting it today to mark the anniversary of the attacks of 2001. JG “There are more than 8 million ordinary objects in this city that carry within them a sense of its inimitable expression. They express its thundering diversity ...

The Inconspicuous, Understated, Wise, 9/11 Memorial of the Union Square Subway Station

Feature

After 9/11 — What?

A Historian Contemplates the Future of Memory

September 11, 2017 • by Claire Potter

My editorial colleague Jeff Goldfarb told me yesterday that he was going to re-publish one of his reflections from September 11, 2001, and I decided to do so too. But I didn't become a blogger until 2006, and then, it appears -- perhaps because, however schmaltzy, commemorations of the attack ...

Feature

Refashioning Patriotism

Selling Fear as Part of The War On Terror

December 5, 2016 • by Maria Christoforou

Less than one week after the World Trade Center attacks, campaigns for the restoration of the American economy and the recovery of the former consumer confidence and spending habits proliferated across the country. By transforming the national tragedy into a commodity, these campaigns initiated a discourse of patriotic consumerism and ...

History

How Not to Remember 9/11

December 29, 2015 • by Ross Poole

There are two memorials for 9/11 at the site of the World Trade Center ("Ground Zero"). The first, the Memorial proper, is a park of around eight acres, consisting of paved space, rows of trees (swamp oaks) and grass, and concrete benches. Within this space are two large square pits ...