Topologies of trauma : essays on the limit of knowledge and memory / edited by Linda Belau and Petar Ramadanovic.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Belau, Linda.

Ramadanovic, Petar, 1964-

Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

Series:

Contemporary theory series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychic trauma--Treatment--Philosophy.

Psychic trauma.

Psychic trauma--Treatment.

Physical Description:

xxvii, 284 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Other Press, [2002]

Summary:

This collection of essays explores the mental geography of trauma -- its forms, causes, and possibilities for resolution. Drawing on extensive clinical experience, the contributors offer insightful interpretations of the ways in which memory, repetition, and working-through interact and function, both as modes of conceiving trauma and as components of psychoanalytic technique. Integrating a wealth of material, including the AIDS pandemic, the category of "the pathetic," contemporary television programming, and Schelling's theories on the absolute past, the contributors tease out the meaning of remembering. Repetition is then examined in detail, bringing Freud's Fort-Da paradigm to bear on the question of trauma as well as Jean Laplanche's theory on the relation between seduction and the genesis of trauma. The link between narcissism and trauma repetition is explored, pointing out the way that translation and repetition are interconnected in the psychoanalytic context. Having established the role of repetition in processing trauma, the contributors discuss the process of working-through traumatic events via mourning, analyzing Toni Morrison's Beloved as well as Chilean political upheavals. These insights are extended in the final essays, which focus on the artistic response to World War II and the Holocaust.

Contents:

Introduction: Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through: Trauma and the Limit of Knowledge / Linda Belau xiii

I. Recollection 1

1. "Das Vergangene wird gewu[beta]t, das Gewu[beta]e aber wird erzahlt": Trauma, Forgetting, and Narrative in F. W. J. Schelling's Die Weltalter / David Farrell Krell 3

2. Interminable AIDS / William Haver 33

3. Demarcations: Pathetic, Unfinished Thoughts on a Life by Default / Fadi Abou-Rihan 53

4. One Train May Be Hiding Another: History, Memory, Identity, and the Visual Image / Thomas Elsaesser 61

II. Repetition 73

5. The Psychical Nature of Trauma: Freud's Dora, the Young Homosexual Woman, and the Fort! Da! Paradigm / Ellie Ragland 75

6. An Interview with Jean Laplanche / Cathy Caruth 101

7. The Catastrophe of Narcissism: Telling Tales of Love / Charles Shepherdson 127

8. Trauma, Repetition, and the Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis / Linda Belau 151

III. Working-Through 177

9. In the Future...: On Trauma and Literature / Petar Ramadanovic 179

10. Obstinate Forgetting in Chile: Radical Injustice and the Possibility of Community / Brett Levinson 211

11. Representation, History, and Trauma: Abstract Art after 1945 / Herman Rapaport 233

12. Transcryptum / Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger 251.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

1892746972

OCLC:

47273144