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| New Film Takes on 9/11 in the Academic Community |
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| Written by Adnan Zuberi, Director and Producer | |||
| Sunday, 08 September 2013 23:19 | |||
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Editor's Note: You can find out more about this informative new documentary at 911inAcademia.com. Coming this fall, 9/11 in the Academic Community, a winner at the University of Toronto Film Festival, is a unique film that documents academia’s treatment of critical perspectives on 9/11. It explores the taboo that has been effective in shielding the American government’s narrative of the events of 9/11 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. Trailer for 9/11 in the Academic CommunityAs well as probing the repercussions several scholars have endured due to their individual investigations into 9/11, this documentary provides an analysis of impairments in professional inquiry, ranging from the failure to critically reflect on terms that function 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.” Since 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.”
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