Cultural Studies in America After September 11, 2001

Abstract

The world changed on September 11, 2001. The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., produced a horror, to quote New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, that is more than the mind can bear. Confused, angry, depressed, full of grief, not knowing how to act, Americans watched their television screens and read their newspapers, seeking direction from those who would bring meaning to this event. This moment requires critically informed responses from the academy. Such responses will help people recover meaning in the face of this senseless, brutal violence; a violence that continues to produce voiceless screams of terror and insanity; a violence and a horror punctuated by stories certain to become part of urban folklore. A young child awakens her mother, &dquo;Mommy can we use the cellphone to call Daddy in heaven?&dquo; (Tierney, 2001, p. A24). In response to the events following September 11, I asked a number of leading cultural studies scholars associated with Cultural Studies H Critical Methodologies to comment on this moment and cultural studies’ place within it. They were given less than a week to prepare their remarks. Their powerful and moving interpretations follow in the next section.