EP #479 - 3.16.2022 - Restoring Memory: Disaster Memory w/Christina Simko

My name is Scott Gabriel Knowles, I am a historian of disasters and since March 16, 2020 the host of COVIDCalls, a daily discussion of the pandemic with a diverse collection of disaster experts.

My guest is Christina Simko. Christina Simko is associate professor of sociology at Williams College. Her research focuses on violent pasts and the complexities that they create for identity and narrative. Her first book, The Politics of Consolation: Memory and the Meaning of September 11 (Oxford University Press) received an honorable mention for the Mary Douglas Prize from the American Sociological Association. In addition to her research on 9/11 memory, Simko’s published work has examined the legacies of the 1945 atomic bombings, the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama, and ongoing debates about the future of Confederate monuments. Her current book project, tentatively titled Suffering from Reminiscences, examines several memorials and museums to terrorism and their companion museums as windows onto contemporary trauma culture in the United States.