Representing Trauma in Culture

HU Institut für Slawistik, Dorotheenstraße 65 Room 5.57, 5 Floor

The exuberant research into traumatic experience in culture, launched by C. Caruth and her immediate successors, now seems to have given place to the perception of trauma as a multifaceted and constantly redefined phenomenon. Not only is the traditional question of its representability no longer a pivotal issue, but also the a priori assumption that such a representation liberates is called into question. While contemporary theorists increasingly want to view cultural and literary narratives as therapeutic performances, even “the practice of care” (I. Galichon), rather than as mere representation, authors and readers of contemporary fiction often speak of “retraumatization,” caused precisely by intensified empathy and an eroding “aesthetic distance.” Autobiographical testimonies have acquired a prominent role for constituting collective memory, functioning as „counter-memory“ (M. Foucault) to ideologies; however, they are also often powerless to compete with the indoctrination and propaganda of repressive regimes and thus to reshape the established memorial culture.

Organized by Smolny Beyond Borders in collaboration with Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.

For more information, e-mail n.aleshina@berlin.bard.edu.