Thesis Components: Memorials and September 11, 2001



For the full abstract: See Long Abstract

For a specific list of resources: Annotated Bibliography:


1. TV: The media response and the development of a collective lens for viewing and reacting to grief.

2. NEWSPAPER/MAGAZINE COVER: Again, the development of a shared lived experience, and the power of this collective emotion, easily channeled by the dominant political discourse.

3. NOSTALGIA: The souvenir, the collectible, the purchasable emblem of tragedy. Also, the pilgrimage to the World Trade Center Viewing Platform, and other memorial sites throughout the City. The way these journeys are structured.

4. MOURNING: From Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia: to Marita Struther and Shoshana Felman. Books on the process of grieving and remembering.

5. VISITS TO THE MEMORIAL: Documenting the surviving memorials, and developing categories and standard components to these memorials. Also, understanding the process of pilgrimage, and relic collection, that goes into these memorial sites.

6. ONLINE MEMORIALS: What is different about an online memorial? Why did so many people develop a memorial site, including myself? How does the glossy, standardized monitor change the experience of memorializing tragedy? How does speed affect the experience? There is something amazing about the quantity of images of the World Trade Center disaster, and the way these images were mass-produced and transmitted around the globe.

7. LIFENET: I do not know much about this yet, but this is the City of New York's grief counseling service for those still shell-shocked by the September 11 events. They advertise in the subway with adds like" New York Need Us Strong", and personal narratives from people coping with grief.

8. SEMIOLOGICAL: I attended the lecture "The Breakdown of the Symbolic Order", with Baudrillard, among other philosophers. I am very interested in the events of September 11 from a semiologic perspective, and think there is much fruit in viewing the attacks from a metaphoric level.

9. MEMORIAL BOOKS: EXISITING MEMORIAL MEDIA: There seems to be a void between actual tragedy and grief and the glossy representations of trauma depicted in the quickly published memorial books on the Market. I have purchased two for review. They seem to follow the general trend towards simplification and political appropriation. Those who died in the towers have been claimed as political heroes, without their consent to be couched in those roles. It minimizes their individual life experiences to be appropriated as symbols of patriotism.

10. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE TOWERS: Rebuilding the World Trade Towers is a very emotional issue, and is an important debate, as it will set the tone for the future of New York, and America. It is a symbolic issue, but not one that should be resolved without debate and critique. Why were the buildings destroyed? What is the appropriate response? How can we memorialize and heal?

11. AESTHETIC REACTION TO TRAGEDY: How does turning a tragic event into art change the conception of the trauma? How does the Web Aesthetic affect the understanding of the tragedy?


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