The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz AlSaud Center for American
Studies and Research (CASAR) and the Media Studies Program
Cordially invite you to a lecture entitled:
"Memory, Tourism, and Defensive Design: The 9/11
Memorial/Museum and the Rebuilding of Ground Zero
in New York"
By Marita Sturken
Date: Monday, April 18, 2016
Time: 5:30 pm
Place: Bldg. 37 (behind Old Lee Observatory)
Abstract: Ground Zero in New York, the site of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September
11, 2001, has been rebuilt over the last decade as a site of commerce, memorialization, tourism, and
architectural showcases. With the opening of the 9/11 Museum in May 2014 and the Santiago Calatravadesigned "Oculus" transportation hub in March 2016, the site is nearing a semblance of completion more
than 15 years after 9/11. The rebuilding of lower Manhattan is about architecture, defensive design,
nationalist politics, and mourning/memory, and it is also about the construction of narratives of American
Empire, national resilience, and survival. This talk looks at the complex politics of the 9/11 Museum, now
a primary tourist destination in the city, in relation to the defensive/security architecture constructed
around it at Ground Zero. It situates this particular site in relation to the broader global implications of the
post 9/11 era of American culture.
Bio: Marita Sturken is Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York
University. She is the author of Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma
City to Ground Zero (2007) and Tangled Memories: the Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics
of Remembering (1997)