Remembering Histories Of Trauma

"Remembering Histories of Trauma compares and links Native American, First Nation and Jewish histories of, and approaches to, traumatic memory. Using source material from both sides of the Atlantic, it examines the differences between these people's ancestral experiences of genocide and the representation of those histories in public sites in the United States, Canada and Europe. Challenging the ways public bodies have used those histories to frame the cultural and political identity of regions, states, and nations, it considers and compares the effects of those representations on internal group memory, external public memory and cultural assimilation. Offering new ways to understand the Native-Jewish encounter, and providing a unique framework to forge their relationship between shared critiques of public historical representation, Mailer seeks to transcend historical tensions between Native American studies and Holocaust studies. In linking and comparing European and American contexts of historical trauma and their representation in public memory, this book brings Native American studies, Jewish studies, early American history, Holocaust studies, and museum studies into conversation with each other. In revealing similarities in the public representation of Indigenous genocide and the Holocaust it offers common ground for Jewish and Indigenous histories and provides a new framework to better understand the divergence between traumatic histories and the ways they are memorialized"--

Remembering Histories of Trauma compares and links Native American, First Nation and Jewish histories of traumatic memory. Using source material from both sides of the Atlantic, it examines the differences between ancestral experiences of genocide and the representation of those histories in public sites in the United States, Canada and Europe. Challenging the ways public bodies have used those histories to frame the cultural and political identity of regions, states, and nations, it considers the effects of those representations on internal group memory, external public memory and cultural assimilation. Offering new ways to understand the Native-Jewish encounter by highlighting shared critiques of public historical representation, Mailer seeks to transcend historical tensions between Native American studies and Holocaust studies. In linking and comparing European and American contexts of historical trauma and their representation in public memory, this book brings Native American studies, Jewish studies, early American history, Holocaust studies, and museum studies into conversation with each other. In revealing similarities in the public representation of Indigenous genocide and the Holocaust it offers common ground for Jewish and Indigenous histories, and provides a new framework to better understand the divergence between traumatic histories and the ways they are memorialized.

The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address intersections of trauma, history, and memory. Methodologies include personal narrative, auto-ethnography, micro-history, psychosocial studies, critical theory, psychoanalysis, film/art criticism, and historical inquiry./span

This collection investigates the social and cultural history of trauma to offer a comparative analysis of its individual, communal, and political effects in the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to witness testimony, to procedures of personal memory and collective commemoration, and to visual sources as they illuminate the changing historical nature of trauma. The essays draw on diverse methodologies, including oral history, and use varied sources such as literature, film and the broadcast media. The contributions discuss imaginative, communal and political responses, as well as the ways in which the later welfare of traumatized individuals is shaped by medical, military, and civilian institutions. Incorporating innovative methodologies and offering a thorough evaluation of current research, the book shows new directions in historical trauma studies.

Traumatic experiences and their consequences are often the core of life stories told by survivors of violence. In Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors leading academics explore the relationship between the experiences of terror and helplessness that have caused trauma, the ways in which survivors remember, and the representation of these memories in the language and form of their life stories. International case studies include the migration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, the life stories of Guatemalan war widows, violence in South Africa, persecution of political prisoners in South Africa and the former Czechoslovakia, lynching in the Mississippi Delta, resistance in Zimbabwe's liberation war, sexual abuse, and the ongoing Irish troubles. The volume reveals the complexity of remembering and forgetting traumatic experiences, and shows that survivors are likely to express themselves in stories containing elements that are imaginary, fragmented, and loaded with symbolism. Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors is a groundbreaking work of relevance across the social sciences. This new perspective on trauma will be of particular importance to researchers in psychology, history, women's studies, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies. Kim Lacy Rogers is professor of history and American studies at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. Selma Leydesdorff is based at the Belle van Zuylen Instituut, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Graham Dawson is a senior lecturer in cultural and historical studies at the University of Brighton, UK.

History from Loss challenges the common thought that "history is written by the winners" and explores how history-makers in different times and places across the globe have written histories from loss, even when this has come at the threat to their own safety. A distinguished group of historians from around the globe offer an introduction to different history-makers’ lives and ideas, and important extracts from their works which highlight various meanings of loss: from physical ailments to social ostracism, exile to imprisonment, and from dispossession to potential execution. Throughout the volume consideration of the information "bubbles" of different times and places helps to show how information has been weaponized to cause harm. In this way, the text helps to put current debates about the biases and weaponization of platforms such as social media into global and historical perspectives. In combination, the chapters build a picture of history from loss which is global, sustained, and anything but a simple mirror of history made by victors. The volume also includes an Introduction and Afterword, which draw out the key meanings of history from loss and which offer ideas for further exploration. History from Loss provides an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and general readers who wish to put current debates on bias, the politicization of history, and threats to history-makers into global and historical perspectives. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Psychic trauma is one of the most frequently invoked ideas in the behavioral sciences and the humanities today. Yet bitter disputes have marked the discussion of trauma ever since it first became an issue in the 1870s, growing even more heated in recent years following official recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a book that is bound to ignite controversy, Ruth Leys investigates the history of the concept of trauma. She explores the emergence of multiple personality disorder, Freud's approaches to trauma, medical responses to shellshock and combat fatigue, Sándor Ferenczi's revisions of psychoanalysis, and the mutually reinforcing, often problematic work of certain contemporary neurobiological and postmodernist theorists. Leys argues that the concept of trauma has always been fundamentally unstable, oscillating uncontrollably between two competing models, each of which tends at its limit to collapse into the other. A powerfully argued work of intellectual history, Trauma will rewrite the terms of future discussion of its subject.

Are horrific experiences indelibly fixed in a victim’s memory? Or does the mind protect itself by banishing traumatic memories from consciousness? How victims remember trauma is the most controversial issue in psychology today, spilling out of consulting rooms and laboratories to capture headlines, rupture families, provoke legislative change, and influence criminal trials and civil suits. This book, by a clinician who is also a laboratory researcher, is the first comprehensive, balanced analysis of the clinical and scientific evidence bearing on this issue—and the first to provide definitive answers to the urgent questions at the heart of the controversy. Synthesizing clinical case reports and the vast research literature on the effects of stress, suggestion, and trauma on memory, Richard McNally arrives at significant conclusions, first and foremost that traumatic experiences are indeed unforgettable. Though people sometimes do not think about disturbing experiences for long periods of time, traumatic events rarely slip from awareness for very long; furthermore, McNally reminds us, failure to think about traumas—such as early sexual abuse—must not be confused with amnesia or an inability to remember them. In fact, the evidence for repressed memories of trauma—or even for repression at all—is surprisingly weak. A magisterial work of scholarship, panoramic in scope and nonpartisan throughout, this unfailingly lucid work will prove indispensable to anyone seeking to understand how people remember trauma.