Other Cultures of Trauma

This book deals with an area of scholarship attracting interdisciplinary interest: the field of trauma studies. It is a project that focuses both on the psychodynamics of trauma and its political and historical contexts. It draws from and reformulates psychoanalytical theory but refuses an easy "therapeutic" approach to pain and suffering and an easy claim to collective (especially national) suffering as in the wake of 9/11. Taking a long historical view but focusing particularly on contemporary experiences of trauma, the author seeks to expose the metropolitanism of contemporary trauma theory and to reverse or at least challenge that trend by looking at the ways in which poscolonial, non-metropolitan literatures about trauma can question Euro-centered trauma theories and practices that are often presented as universal. These critical literatures come from Native America, Algeria, and the Caribbean. This book is addressed to thinkers and writers in all area studies programs that attend to the historical and contemporary dynamics of trauma and its consequences.