Thanks, Les for sending this in.

http://www.projo.com/education/content/uri_911class_11-24-06_T7315SH.3384c05.html

New URI course to focus on impact of 9/11 on literature

01:00 AM EST on Friday, November 24, 2006

By Jennifer D. Jordan
Journal Staff Writer

Prof. Alain-Philippe Durand knew he had hit a nerve when his French class
at the University of Rhode Island discussed a controversial novel about
9/11, Windows on the World, two years ago.

The book, written by Frederick Beigbeder, was then only available in
French. Durand hoped its provocative subject — an imagining of the
terror and violence that transpired in the North Tower just as the first
plane hit the World Trade Center — would spark lively debate in the
French conversation class.

But the professor said he was not prepared for the intensity of the
discussion or the complexity of the issues it revealed.

“The students were divided into two camps. One side said, ‘Who does
this guy think he is …. This Frenchman thinks he knows more about the
U.S. than we do,’ ” said Durand. “The other half of the class was
completely the opposite. They thought a novel on this should have been
written earlier, and that the only way to confront these issues is to talk
about them.”

A few months later, Durand edited a book, Novels of Contemporary Extreme,
with his colleague, Naomi Mandel, an associate professor of English who
specializes in literature of the Holocaust. Durand began to see a
connection between writings about the Holocaust and the profusion of
novels, documentaries, movies and nonfiction books about 9/11 that had
started to come out.

“Who has the right to tell the story?” Durand said. “Should it be
only those people who experienced it first hand? What do you do when all
those people are dead?”

These questions prompted Durand to create a new class at URI’s Kingston
campus. In January, an honors seminar for 20 students, conducted in
English, will explore the impact of 9/11 through literature and film.

“What I am really hoping is that by having some discussion, that will
help us come to terms with the event itself,” Durand said. “One of the
main questions will be is there, or should there be, such a thing as the
literature of 9/11 the way there is a literature of the Holocaust.”

The class will explore the terrorist attacks through various media
including comic books, photography, nonfiction books, the federal
government’s 9/11 Commission Report, novels, documentaries and feature
films.

“There will be a section on testimonials of survivors put together by
New York Times journalists and a section on theories about violence by
intellectuals like Susan Sontag,” Durand said. “There will also be a
section on the conspiracy theories about 9/11 by this group of people,
educated people like professors and architects, who are arguing that
September 11 did not happen as it was presented but that it was
orchestrated by the U.S. government.”

Durand is already thinking about what form the discussion will take if
some students believe the conspiracy theory.

“Maybe by going through all the materials in the course, they will
change their mind,” he said. “But everyone will be free to say what
they want as long as they are respectful to the other students.”

The course will also analyze different approaches to retelling the events
of 9/11, comparing a French documentary about the New York firefighters
who responded to the World Trade Center to feature films, such as United
93. That movie starred unknown actors and was filmed with hand-held
cameras to capture the ragged, shocking nature of the hijacking of the
doomed plane. Durand also plans to show Oliver Stone’s World Trade
Center, a big-budget studio production starring Nicholas Cage, and an HBO
movie on the terrorists behind the attacks, called The Hamburg Cell.

“I want the students to discuss how different writers and filmmakers
have chosen to represent such an event and also to discuss the different
approaches,” Durand said.

Durand said that five years after the terrorist attacks, many people feel
ready to explore the issues raised by 9/11.

“In part, it’s a question of time,” he said. “On September 12,
people like [David] Letterman and [Jay] Leno didn’t have a show. They
didn’t see how they could go on the air and try to tell jokes after what
had happened.”

But within a few days, network television decided it was time to return to
some semblance of normalcy, and late-night comedians returned to the air.