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S1624 Cities After 9/11

Song Min Hyoung

This course starts by looking at the ways in which fiction in particular has sought to make sense of the significance of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and then moves on to consider how other major public events that followed, such as the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the Great Recession, have become part of a larger narrative that begins with this earlier sensational event. As the range of our attention expands, so will the kind of material we will look at: long-form journalism, creative nonfiction, memoir, film, and photography. Cities remain at the center of our attention, as the very experience of living in a city, and maybe even the very idea of the city itself, in the US has been affected by this larger narrative. In particular, we will consider how concern for security, heightened surveillance, racial animosities, and fear of the government impede the ability to imagine sustainable futures for cities in the US and abroad. We will also consider how paying attention to significant public events can help us to understand our present differently, and perhaps offer alternative—and even desirable—ways of living together. The course is divided into five sections: trauma, Iraq, Katrina, financial crisis, and social alternatives.