This special issue is a testimony to the intensity of the events of September 11 2001 and how they have touched moved and shaken everyone both in ways that people have been struggling to grapple with and ways that they cannot even be aware of. The essays in this special issue include: *an article that Wendy Kohli delivered as her America Educational Studies Association Presidential address in the Fall of 2001 just weeks after the events of September 11; *an analysie of the relationship of global corporate interests and the subsequent impact on the community of life that the war on terrorism brings to light; *a sweeping and in-depth lesson on the cultural and political contexts of the various countries involved and what we need to know to teach about these events in those contexts; *an account of the aesthetic power of poetry to help us reckon with our new world; and *a collection of reflective works on what Social Foundations professors and their students went through in the aftermath of the attacks how their courses have both contributed to their students' (and their own) abilities to understand this current context as well as how these courses have been reshaped. . Language: English