Greetings! I am Christina Beard-Moose, professor of anthropology at Suffolk Comm. College, Long Island, NY. I have been enthusiastically reading the posts from the forum for a few months and have now gathered enough time to sit down and post myself. I am about to start the field research for a paper on WTC--Ground Zero as a dark tourism site. By no means the only one in the US, but certainly both the newest and [at least at this point in history] the most infamous. Before I begin, I wanted to ask the forum's help. I can find very little written on the site in terms of a scholarly discussion of the dark tourism aspects. I was there yesterday for a bit [it's very hard to go--quite haunted, I'm sure you've guessed] and I am struck once again at the gleefulness of the tourists that stand and stare into the gaping pit. On this saturday, there were a lot of teenagers there. I am thinking of doing this piece from the angle of children and teens being brought to the site by parents, schools, and churches [all adult-run] to explore this phenomenon. Any thoughts would be great! I am putting an abstract in for the U of Surrey's "Cutting Edge Research in Tourism" conference slated for June 2006. I hope to meet some of this lively group while in England!
Regards, Christina
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