Speak, Trauma: Toward a Revised Understanding of Literary Trauma Theory

Pederson, Joshua

doi:10.1353/nar.2014.0018

Cited by 61 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In his essay "Backwards" Chatman (2009) wonders what "authors gain from employing backwards and/or anonymizing discourse -with all its extra burdening of the reader's attention and patience" (p. 48). This analysis of All the Birds, Singing with reference to Bergson's (2002) concept of the "indivisibility of change" and Pederson's (2014) revised literary trauma theory has provided an answer to this question. The interlocking of two narrative strands moving in opposite directions reveals that Jake Whyte's traumatic past is by no means forgotten, but remains an integral part of her present.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet this model proves insufficient in the case of Wyld's All the Birds, Singing. Bergson's (2002) concept of the "indivisibility of change" (p. 263), and Pederson's (2014) revised literary trauma theory, in turn, reveal the true significance of trauma for the coming-of-age process. With its rather unconventional narrative structure, the novel challenges the mere strategic role of the trial and provides insight into the long-lasting effects of trauma on adolescence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Indivisibility of Change: The Challenge of Trauma to the Genre of Coming-of-Age Narratives

Buechel¹

2018

ijah

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Evie Wyld's novel All the Birds, Singing (2013) draws attention to the interrelation of personal history, trauma narratives, and coming-of-age stories. Herein, Wyld's novel will be analysed with reference to two bodies of theory: Bergson's model of the "indivisibility of change" (p. 263), which re-conceptualizes the past as part of a "perpetual present" (p. 262), and Pederson's revised literary theory of trauma, which deviates from crucial tenets of traditional literary trauma studies. Due to the novel's unconventional structure of a backward-moving narrative strand interlocked with a forward-moving one, the crisis the narrator experienced in adolescence moves centre stage, which shows that, in the case of trauma, coming-of-age requires a continual negotiating of this experience. The novel challenges "strategically grim" coming-of-age narratives that represent trauma merely "as part of a narrative of the young protagonist's redemption or maturation," so that "resolution occurs as a matter of narrative convention […]" (Gilmore and Marshall, p. 23). All the Birds, Singing demonstrates that the painstaking processing of a painful personal history in narrative, achieved by establishing a dialogue of voices (and thus of selves), is an essential prerequisite for maturation. Accordingly, the genre of coming-of-age narratives, besides including novels that present a crisis merely as a necessary step on the way to adult life, also needs to incorporate texts documenting the persistence of trauma in a protagonist's life.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Indivisibility of Change: The Challenge of Trauma to the Genre of Coming-of-Age Narratives

Buechel¹

2018

ijah

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“…Research in trauma has two conflicting theories regarding how trauma is processed and recalled by the human brain. Caruth states that trauma has an "amnesic quality and is unspeakable" (as cited in Pederson, 2014, p. 334). However, McNally (2007 claims that individuals do remember their traumatic experiences but choose not to talk about them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Use of Bibliotherapy With English as a Second Language Students

Cancino¹,

Cruz²

2019

ELT

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Studies in trauma healing and teaching ESL students have been done before. In addition, bibliotherapy has been used in educational and psychological disciplines. However, there are few studies that explore the use of bibliotherapy and trauma healing in ESL refugee students. My objective for this study was to explore bibliotherapy to see what experiences/stories surfaced from students’ lives and what connections/ reflections students made to the books we read in the bibliotherapy sessions. This was a qualitative single case study; I observed and worked with a group of ESL refugee students in an after-school program. However, for this study I followed the progress of one student over our bibliotherapy sessions. I used observations, interviews and artifacts analysis. Data was collected, triangulated and coded. I found out that the student Identified herself to some degree with the texts read during our bibliotherapy sessions. However, stories from past traumatic experiences surfaced during oral discussions but became more visible whenever she was writing.

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“…On the other hand, maybe we are reaching a crisis point in considering the very notion of trauma. I am reflecting on an article that was published towards the end of last year, Joshua Pederson's "Speak Trauma", which came out in the October 2014 issue of Narrative [46]. This presented a serious challenge to some of the most cherished notions of cultural trauma theory.…”

Section: Stef Crapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My approach would be to make these kinds of linkages and comparisons beyond particular disciplines. I do think that 'trauma' and 'trauma studies' is pretty exhausted as a term, and I can see why we are getting the kind of critiques from someone like Joshua Pederson [46].…”

Section: Stef Crapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decolonizing Trauma Studies Round-Table Discussion

et al. 2015

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This round-table, which featured literary critics Professor Stef Craps, Professor Bryan Cheyette and Dr. Alan Gibbs, was recorded as part of the “Decolonizing Trauma Studies” symposium organized by Dr. Sonya Andermahr and Dr. Larissa Allwork at The School of The Arts, The University of Northampton (15 May 2015). Convened a week after the University of Zaragoza’s “Memory Frictions” conference, where Cheyette, Gibbs, Andermahr and Allwork gave papers, the Northampton symposium and round-table was sponsored by The School of The Arts to coincide with Andermahr’s guest editorship of this special issue of Humanities. Craps, Cheyette and Gibbs addressed five questions during the round-table. Namely, does trauma studies suffer from a form of psychological universalism? Do you see any signs that trauma studies is becoming more decolonized? What are the challenges of a decolonized trauma studies for disciplinary thinking? How does a decolonized trauma studies relate to pedagogical ethics? Finally, where do you see the future of the field? While this edited transcript retains a certain informality of style, it offers a significant contribution to knowledge by capturing a unique exchange between three key thinkers in contemporary trauma studies, providing a timely analysis of the impact of postcolonial theory on trauma studies, the state of the field and its future possibilities. Issues addressed include the problematic scholarly tendency to universalize a western model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); the question of the centrality of the Holocaust in trauma studies and the implications of this for the study of atrocities globally; the vexed issues posed by the representation of perpetrators; as well as how the basic tenets of western cultural trauma theory, until recently so often characterized by a Caruth-inspired focus on belatedness and afterwardness, are being rethought, both in response to developments in the US and in answer to the challenge to ‘decolonize’ trauma studies.

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Speak, Trauma: Toward a Revised Understanding of Literary Trauma Theory

Cited by 61 publications

References 19 publications

The Indivisibility of Change: The Challenge of Trauma to the Genre of Coming-of-Age Narratives

The Indivisibility of Change: The Challenge of Trauma to the Genre of Coming-of-Age Narratives

Exploring the Use of Bibliotherapy With English as a Second Language Students

Decolonizing Trauma Studies Round-Table Discussion

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