In Conversation: Brenda Berkman '73 and Patrick Wilz on Service, Memory, and Meaning

What does it mean to realize you’re acting in a historic moment—not just witnessing it, but shaping it? Firefighter and 9/11 first responder Brenda Berkman ’73 joins Visiting Assistant Professor of History Patrick Wilz to explore what it means to be swept into the current of history, and how one makes sense of its legacies. Drawing on Berkman’s service on September 11 and her printmaking practice in its aftermath, the conversation turns to how we process, commemorate, and remember traumatic and world-historic events—both personally and collectively.

Free and open to the public, this event is presented by the Buntrock Institute for Freedom and Community with the St. Olaf History Department, and in conjunction with Brenda Berkman: 36 Views of One World Trade Center on view at the Flaten Art Museum.