Gender Studies 320: Trauma & its Aftermath: Narrative, Witnessing & Remembrance

Trauma has attracted critical attention as a limit case through which to explore the nature of selfhood, language, memory and power, and the ethical and political implications of representing violence. Taking contemporary examples of race- and gender-based violence, their intersections, and their specificities as a point of departure, students will examine debates in scholarship and activism over definitions of trauma, its personal and collective impacts, and the social, cultural, and political actions to be taken in its wake.  We will pay particular attention to questions of narrative genre, medium and transmission, as well as the role of commemoration in projects to combat violence.  May be taken for credit toward the Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies major or minor or the Global Literature minor. May be elected as Global Literatures 320 or Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies 320.