911inacademia | Coming this fall, “9/11 in the Academic Community,” a Winner of the
University of Toronto Film Festival, is a unique film that documents
academia’s treatment of critical perspectives on 9/11 by exploring the
taboo that shields the American government’s narrative from scholarly
examination. Through a powerful reflection on intellectual courage and
the purpose of academia, the film aims at changing intellectual
discourse on 9/11 and the War on Terror.
As well as probing the repercussions several scholars have endured
due to their investigation of 9/11, this documentary provides an
analysis of impairments in professional inquiry, ranging from the
failure to critically reflect on terms functioning as thought-stoppers
(such as “conspiracy theory”) to the structural approach that restricts
inquiry to the broad implications of 9/11 while shutting out enquiry
into the events of the day itself. Morton Brussel, Professor Emeritus of
Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has stated:
“The main thesis of the film concerns the silence of the academic
community on this vital issue. I think it is extremely important and
very well produced.”
As 9/11 served as the rationale for the Global War on Terror, the
expansion of the military and intelligence complex, the invasion of
other countries in violation of international law, and the curtailing of
civil liberties, the film provides an inspiring demonstration of
intellectual courage that will cause many scholars to reflect on the
academy’s role and strength to dismantle the war system. As Alvin A.
Lee, President Emeritus of McMaster University, has stated in his
endorsement of the film: academics should “stand sufficiently outside
society intellectually to see, understand, and interpret what is going
on.”
