Rummaging Through the Wreckage: Geographies of Trauma, Memory, and Loss at the National September 11th Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center

This dissertation traces the emergence of 9/11 memory as it is shaped in relation to the event\u27s memorialization at nationally-dedicated landscapes of memory. Focusing on the National September 11th Memorial & Museum, The National Flight 93 Memorial, and the National Pentagon 9/11 Memorial, my research examines how cultural memory is mediated through the establishment of `places of memory\u27 within the built-environment. Here, I argue, the preservation of place acts as a repository of national memory by safeguarding the history of 9/11 for future generations. Contextualizing these landscapes of memory within the global war on terrorism, my analytical framework engages the transnational significance of 9/11 memory in a global world. Accordingly, this research situates 9/11 remembrance within interdisciplinary and cross-border conversations that theorize national practices of preservation and commemoration in relation to transnational flows of people, information, and ideas. Here, my research articulates the formation of 9/11 memory as a unique `geography of trauma.\u27 Offering an original contribution to geography, this research theorizes the spatial and temporal movement of traumatic memories across time and space. Aimed at understanding how these historic sites are mediated in relation to other landscapes of violence and cultural trauma--past and present--my research draws on critical geopolitical theorizations of the nation-state, feminist theories of emotion and embodiment, queer deployments of affect, and cultural theories of memory, as tools for navigating post-structural ideas of power, knowledge, discourse, and empire