Out of Ground Zero: Catastrophe and Memory
This MIT OpenCourseWare course examines how societies memorialize catastrophe, starting from the debates that erupted within a day of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center over whether a monument was the right response. It widens the frame to earlier sites of mass death in Germany and Japan, comparing memorials, literature, film, and other cultural forms as competing ways of holding collective memory. Readings and discussions ask what a monument can and cannot do, and whether other media capture historical trauma more honestly. The course includes a syllabus, reading assignments, and discussion materials from MIT's Global Studies and Languages program, free to access online with no certificate offered. It suits students interested in memory studies, comparative history, or the cultural aftermath of violence.