Affect, Performativity and Politics in the 9/11 Museum

According to director Alice Greenwald, "Witnesses are the way into the museum" (Kuang 2014). The museum represents and performs -on endless loop -the images of destruction that give such force to terrorism as a political, public act, reinforcing the fear the attacks stoked as visitors become witness over and over again to the attacks. [...]while witnessing in the museum is meant to be an ethical duty in the promotion of democracy and peace, it is channeled through the fear that an act of terrorism is intended to produce. In this way the museum amplifies the violent voices of the terrorists, granting them, day in and day out, the infamy and immortality that they sought. [...]while the museum's creators intended to "democratize" memory in the hope of avoiding the creation of a single, hegemonic narrative and history of 9/11 and to disperse that memory and its concomitant responsibility, they have actually done quite the opposite. After "consuming" 9/11 in a way that the museum implies elicits thorough understanding, the tourist leaves the museum with a limited understanding of the causes and consequences of terrorism, but an acute impression of the fear, trauma and terror the attacks created. Because the cultural forms we use shape how events enter into our collective memory (e.g. Sodaro 2018), we have good reason to be wary of what collective memory is being performed and crystallized by the National September 11 Memorial Museum.