About the event
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Join this discussion of the reach of 9/11’s aftermath in five societal issues that remain a concern for individuals and New York City as a whole: public safety, civil rights, the human right to a healthy environment, mental health, and community well-being.
In the last twenty years, New York City has experienced two major catastrophes. In 2001 and again in 2020, New York City was seen by the world as a stricken city – in 2001 with the destruction of the World Trade Center and, in 2020 from March to May, it was the world epicenter of the COVID pandemic. Though different kinds of disasters, both were characterized by immense trauma and the shocking loss of lives.
In recent years, the phrases “like 9/11” and “since 9/11,” have emerged to denote catastrophes that rupture civic well-being and individual and collective lives. Such comparisons have connected 9/11 with the human and civic costs of profusely-contaminated air from western wildfires, health risks borne by essential workers in the COVID pandemic, urban areas reduced to rubble in disasters, and policies that exacerbate between-group disparities in well-being.
Ten years ago, Professor Susan Opotow, Zachary Baron Shemtob, and the James Gallery/Center for the Humanities convened a public conference that brought together practitioners and scholars to discuss such emerging issues in 2011 as health and safety, the challenges faced by the New York’s Muslim-American community and, with architects Daniel Liebeskind and Michael Arad, rebuilding the World Trade Center site. Three years ago, the resulting edited book, New York After 9/11 (Fordham University Press, 2018), widened and deepened investigations into 9/11’s extended aftermath in various spheres of New York City life.
Looking back from the vantage of the present as well as looking forward into the future, the five panelists Charles Jennings, Mindy Fullilove, Naz Ahmed, Rebecca Bratspies, and Roberto Lucchini with the organizers Susan Opotow and Zachary Baron Shemtob will address these urgent and chronic issues to discuss how we, as individuals living collectively in a city, can safeguard our health, our privacy, and our well-being in contexts shaped by shared and extreme duress.
Organized by Professor Susan Opotow, Zachary Baron Shemtob, and the James Gallery/Center for the Humanities.
Presented by the James Gallery/Center for the Humanities with the support of John Jay College of Criminal Justice CUNY; CUNY Law School; The Public Science Project; CUNY Graduate Center PhD Programs in: Critical Social/Personality Psychology, Urban Education, and Social Welfare; Sociology Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice CUNY; The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics; Fordham University Press.
