Until the Fires Stopped Burning : 9/11 and New York City in the Words and Experiences of Surviviors and Witnesses

Based on the testimony of survivors, bystanders, spectators, and victims' friends and families, __Until the Fires Stopped Burning__ brings much-needed clarity to the conscious and unconscious meaning of 9/11 and its relationships to historical disaster, apocalyptic experience, unnatural death, and the psychological endurance of trauma. Charles B. Strozier interprets and contextualizes the memories of witnesses, comparing their encounter with 9/11 to the devastation of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Katrina, and other events. Organizing his study around "zones of sadness" in New York City, Strozier powerfully evokes the multiple places in which his respondents confronted 9/11 while remaining sensitive to the personal, social, and cultural differences of these experiences. Most important, he distinguishes between 9/11 as an apocalyptic event and an apocalyptic experience, which is crucial to understanding the attack's affect on American life and a still-evolving culture of fear in the world. Charles B. Strozier's college lost sixty-eight alumni in the tragedy of 9/11, and the many courses he has taught on terrorism and related topics since have attracted dozens of survivors and family members. A practicing psychoanalyst in Manhattan, Strozier has also accepted many seared by the disaster into his care. In some ways, the grief he has encountered has felt familiar; in other ways, unprecedented. Compelled to investigate its unique character further, he launched a fascinating study into the conscious and unconscious meaning of the event, both for those who were physically close to the attack and for those who witnessed it beyond the immediate space of Ground Zero. Based on the testimony of survivors, bystanders, spectators, and victim's friends and families, __Until the Fires Stopped Burning__ brings much-needed clarity to the conscious and unconscious meaning of 9/11 and its relationship to historical disaster, apocalyptic experience, unnatural death, and the psychological endurance of trauma. Strozier interprets and contextualizes the memories of witnesses and compares their encounter with 9/11 to the devastation of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Katrina, and other events Kai Erikson has called a "new species of trouble" in the world. Organizing his study around "zones of sadness" in New York, Strozier powerfully evokes the multiple places in which his respondents confronted 9/11 while remaining sensitive to the personal, social, and cultural differences of these experiences. Most important, he distinguishes between 9/11 as an apocalyptic event (which he affirms it is not;rather, it is a monumental event), and 9/11 as an apocalyptic experience, which is crucial to understanding the act's affect on American life and a still-evolving culture of fear in the world. Contents Introduction The Event Part 1: 102 Minutes of Disaster Zones of Sadness 1 Survivors: Zone 1 2 Witnesses: Zone 2 3 Participants: Zone 3 4 Onlookers: Zone 4 Reflections 5 The Dying 6 Apocalyptic Interlude 7 Traumasong 8 Television: Numbing and Rage 9 Hidden Children: Television’s Exception Part 2: 100 Days of Suffering 10 Organic Process 11 Disrupted Lives 12 Death and Future 13 Pregnant Women Part 3: Ten Years of Effects 14 The Surprise of It All 15 On Trauma and Zones of Sadness 16 Historical Memory of the Disaster Acknowledgments Appendix: The Literature on Trauma and the Measurement of PTSD After 9/11 Notes Index This title offers a way of understanding - of taking the measure of, coming to terms with - a thing that probably does not lend itself to any other kind of telling. The book is a psychological portrait fo the 9/11 attack and its personal and collective trauma Collects interviews with survivors, bystanders, and emergency workers during the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, focusing on the different "zones of sadness" affected by the attack