One of Professor Philip Graham’s most vivid memories of the World Trade Center towers are from his visit to New York City for the 100th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge.

He remembers being invited by friends to attend festivities, which involved renting a boat for a party on the East River — arguably one of the best places to watch the fireworks display.

“The most spectacular thing about it, because we were on the waterfront, was that the fireworks were reflected on the water all around us,” he recalls from his office in the English Building over 27 years later. “They were also reflected on the glass fronts of the buildings. And they looked like explosions. And you could see from where we were the towers, and they also were covered on those upper levels with explosions.”

For Graham, the image of these “explosions” by the towers at the time — almost 20 years before the Sept. 11 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people — was eerie, yet spectacular. It wasn’t until after 9/11 that the image took on a greater meaning.

The account was so significant for Graham that he incorporated it into a short story he wrote in 2007 called “8:46.” Graham is just one of many University faculty members and students that have published or are in the process of writing literature about the attacks.

Graham’s story, named after the exact time American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower, is the tale of 11 people on their way to or working in the towers on the day of the attacks. He cites The New York Times’ ‘Portraits of Grief,’ a series of short biographies about those killed in the attacks, as his inspiration.

“One of the things about the story that got to me, reading the ‘Portraits of Grief,’ was how different everybody else was; how many different ethnicities, nationalities there were in the towers,” Graham said. “There was no kind of monolithic ‘this is the kind of person that was there.’”

But “8:46,” which is part of a novella Graham is releasing next year called “Dreaming the Towers,” was not the first time he attempted to capture 9/11 in writing. In 2002, Graham wrote “Expedition,” a piece about his experience volunteering at a restaurant called Nino’s, located near ground zero, in the wake of the attacks.

“I began to meet people in volunteering who had been in the towers and had not gone anywhere near the site,” he said. “Nino’s was about 10 blocks away. It was the closest they could allow themselves to go.”

A European perspective

Sanna Stegmaier is an exchange student from the University of Vienna working on her master’s thesis. Having lived on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean during 9/11, she wants to study a different side of the event.

“The reaction in the beginning (after 9/11) of Europe was to be very supportive of the United States, and then a year after, it kind of split apart,” she said. “I’m wondering if there’s a relation to how far you are away from the event, or if it’s an American attitude toward the event to be traumatized.”

Stegmaier’s thesis is still in its infancy, but she wants to focus on how the media’s reaction to 9/11 shaped the literature born after.

Stegmaier previously visited the United States when she was 16, right as the country declared war on Iraq.

She explained how her visit and especially the American media affected her perspective.

“I was actually thinking it was a good idea to start the war,” she said. “And going back to Europe, that absolutely changed.”

Stegmaier hypothesized the war not only split Europe and America, but also affected literature.

One of the biggest issues that arises with post-9/11 literature, she said, is the struggle it faces to find its own voice next to other omnipresent media forms.

Illuminating his meaning

Meanwhile, English Professor Alex Shakar is also analyzing post-9/11 art, film and literature in his own way.

Shakar, a Brooklyn native, remembers 9/11 very well — he watched the towers burn from the rooftop above his parents’ home.

Nine years later, Shakar is preparing to have his first book about 9/11 — third in total — published. “Luminarium,” as it is titled, will be released in 2012.

“The novel isn’t explicitly about 9/11, but gradually as you go through it, you see that more and more things kind of have to do with it and stem from it,” Shakar said, being careful not to reveal too much about the novel’s plot.

The book follows the protagonist, his brothers and how their lives have been indirectly affected by 9/11. The characters run a software company-turned military simulation industry due to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

“I think that anybody who’s interested in the intersection of science and spirituality would be interested in it,” Shakar said. “It was a bit of a spiritual odyssey for me too.”