Our colleague Judy Coffin alerted us to this blog post on 9/11 by Claire Potter, Prof of History and American Studies at Wesleyan University, aka “Tenured Radical.”
It is a thoughtful consideration of many issues connected with thinking historically about the events of September 11, 2001 and the decade since.
Especially striking to me is the push-pull so many of us have been feeling about commemorating 9/11: a resistance to the public, politicized enacting of memory fighting against the irresistable surge of feelings and some kind of genuine sense of community.
I also am attracted to her suggestion that we think about the experiences of 9/11 locally and regionally, as we collect our memory documents and construct our historical narratives.
I wonder what everyone else thinks?