Trauma

"Because traumatic events are unbearable in their horror and intensity, they often exist as memories that are not immediately recognizable as truth. Such experiences are best understood not only through the straightforward acquisition of facts but through a process of discovering where and why conscious understanding and memory fail. Literature, according to Cathy Caruth and others, opens a window on traumatic experience because it teaches readers to listen to what can be told only in indirect and surprising ways. Sociology, film, and political activism can also provide new ways of thinking about and responding to the experience of trauma. In Trauma and Memory, a distinguished group of analysts and critics offer a compelling look at what literature and the new approaches of a variety of clinical and theoretical disciplines bring to the understanding of traumatic experience. Combining two highly - acclaimed special issues of American Imago edited by Caruth, this interdisciplinary colle