How A Generation Remembers: A Study into the Postmemory & Collective Trauma of 9/11

Abstract

This thesis responds to an anthropological, and broadly social-scientific, literature of collective trauma and memory to investigate how memories of traumatic events are inherited intergenerationally. To do this, this thesis fills a gap in the anthropological scholarship about 9/11, while simultaneously utilizing an analysis of 9/11 to think critically about memory, trauma, and the generation. Through conceptualizing the generation as a kind of mnemonic community, this thesis builds an argument around the postgeneration of 9/11, or the generation that came of age in an America post-9/11. This thesis extends upon Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory to argue that the postgeneration of 9/11 has inherited memories and narratives of 9/11 through the discursive environment in which they grew up – a discursive environment that is built upon American utilization of moral claims and moral injunctions in 9/11 discourse.