TRACING THE SCARS: TOWARDS A NEW READING OF TRAUMA ______________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board ______________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ______________________________________________________________________ by Susan Cherie Beam May 2020 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Suzanne Gauch, Advisory Chair, English Dr. Sue-Im Lee, English Dr. Carissa Harris, English Dr. Beverly E. Schneller, External Member, Belmont University i ABSTRACT In our contemporary cultural setting, the notion of “trauma” has been extended far beyond a clinical diagnosis and cultural trope into a signifier denoting a subjective reaction to experiences ranging from small grievances to large-scale tragedies. In a world where stories featuring traumatic subject matter have become part of our daily reading, is how we read, understand, and teach trauma still effective? This dissertation explores the ahistorical, subjective experience of trauma as represented in a selection of contemporary global literature, pushing back against canonical trauma literary theory posed by scholars such as Cathy Caruth and instead, suggests a new mode of reading traumatic representation. I argue that, by exploring both the wounded mind and the wounded body, with attention to the influence of the traumatic context and close-reading the nuance of the figurative language of representation, we have much new knowledge to gain. Additionally, as trauma narratives appear regularly in higher education as Common Reads and on literature class syllabi, this dissertation offers practical suggestions for a teaching of traumatic narratives which is sensitive to both the subject matter and the student audience. Chapter 1 begins by exploring contemporary, media-based accounts of trauma, highlighting the dangers of the fetishization and commodification of the traumatized body, particularly traumatized bodies of color, before discussing two examples of public trauma performance: Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a national protest against the “disappearing” of dissentients of Argentina’s “Dirty War” and Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) , a work of endurance performance art by former Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary study of trauma and the main arguments and criticisms of literary trauma theory, including the marginalization of non-Western ii trauma, the prioritization of a Western understanding of trauma and recovery, the emphasizing of traumatic representation through a Modernist, fragmented approach, and the disregarding of the connections between Western and non-Western traumas. From this foundation, I pose my own approach for reading and teaching trauma narratives, suggesting that by close reading trauma in context, with the inclusion of the traumatized body, readers and students more effectively understand trauma and traumatic situations and therefore, are better prepared as global citizens. Chapters 3-5 then demonstrates my application of this lens to a selection of texts, exploring the trauma of both well-known novels and unknown novels and memoirs. Chapter 3 centers on war trauma in Hanan al-Shaykh's Beirut Blues (1992), Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost (2000) and Nora Okja Keller’s Fox Girl (2002) in an effort to extend war trauma discussions to the unheard voices of non-combatants. Chapter 4 explicates the notion of intergenerational trauma, time, and memory before offering a new and potentially fresh reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1988), a novel heralded as the preeminent example of the trauma narrative genre, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries: A Memoir (2018), concluding that intergenerational trauma manifests in different ways within different marginalized populations. In Chapter 5, I address the mind-body split heralded by canonical trauma theory, focusing on the body as a “text” of cultural trauma, and then apply the theory to critical readings of the traumatized and othered bodies of Edwidge Danicat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) and Fadia Faqir’s The Cry of the Dove (2007). In sum, I emphasized looking both looking at the trauma trope and beyond it. It is my hope that this evolved understanding will have broad applications for reading trauma narratives, as using this mode of inquiry will more fully achieve active witnessing, especially when reading non-Western literature. I conclude by offering a pragmatic, theoretical approach for teaching trauma narratives which connects trauma iii to historical or cultural context and therefore, offers a greater avenue for education about experiences which may be very different than one’s own experiences. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project could not have been completed without the support of a loving community, including amazing family, friends, and colleagues. With this, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the following: My committee, for their time and efforts. During a class together, Dr. Carissa Harris peaked my interest with her enthusiastic teaching of the body in literature, opening my eyes to new possibilities in knowledge. Dr. Sue-Im Lee was instrumental in helping me create conversations between scholarly sources. My chair, Dr. Suzanne Gauch, thoughtfully provided me with guidance, suggestions, and encouragement as she supported my efforts to further nuance my understanding. A special thanks to my outsider reader, Dr. Beverly Schneller, for her endless support dating back through my undergraduate and Master’s work at Millersville University. I have had wonderful mentors during my education, and it is my hope that I emulate these efforts with my own students. My family and friends, for their constant motivation. Whether it was a sympathetic ear or a few encouraging words, they have been the pillars who held me up during this process. A special remembrance to my mother, Barbara Beam, who passed away before this accomplishment. My husband, Michael – without him, this experience would not have been possible. Thank you for always loving me and making me laugh. A special nod to our kitties, who interrupted my writing for pets and attention, keeping me grounded. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………….…v INTRODUCTION: THE PERVASIVENESS OF TRAUMA…………………………………..vii CHAPTERS 1. TRAUMATIC DISCOURSE: PUBLIC, PERFORMANCE, COMMODIFICATION, AND SOCIAL CHANGE…………………………………………………………………….1 2. UNTANGLING THE TRAUMA KNOT: TRAUMA AS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY……………………………………………………………………………………...30 3. WAR AND THE AFTERMATH: RUINED AND RUINS………………………………...59 4. INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA……………………………………...………………95 5. THE TRAUMATIZED MIND-BODY SPLIT……………………………………….……136 6. CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF TRAUMA AND THE LITERARY CLASSROOM……………………………………………………………………………..165 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………173 vi INTRODUCTION THE PERVASIVENESS OF TRAUMA It was business as usual five minutes before the start of my spring 2018 English 101 class – some students were chatting while others were playing on their phones as I cued up the computer for today’s material. Suddenly, one of the phones slipped out of a student’s hand and shattered on the hard classroom floor. Silence ensued, broken only by the owner’s dramatic sigh: “I’m literally traumatized. I’ve only had this phone for a week.” My intent in beginning with this anecdote is not to mock my student, but rather, highlight their statement as an exemplar of a trend occurring over the past 20-30 years: the signifier of “trauma,” in a cultural sense, has undergone substantial revisions in terms of both meaning and usage. Far from singularly referring to the aftermath of a life-shattering and horrific experience, “trauma” can now also be used to describe the mildly irritating or inconvenient events of daily life. This shift in language has also afforded a drastic increase in how often we talk about trauma; for example, in an August 4, 2019 Google news search, entering the word “trauma” yields over 41 million hits in a .33 second search. The results share no discernible connection aside from the use of the actual word, but the dramatic number does suggest that culturally and collectively, we spend a lot of time talking about wounding and the traumatic aftermath. This observation is not necessarily new to scholars interested in trauma; in his 1998 Post-Traumatic Culture: Injury and Interpretation in the Nineties , Kirby Farrell wrote, “In contemporary culture…trauma is both a clinical syndrome and a cultural trope something like the Renaissance figure of the world as a stage: a strategic fiction that a complex, stressful society is using to account for a world that seems threateningly out of control” (2). However, in the 20 years since Farrell made this observation, I would argue that trauma has moved beyond even this initial assessment. “Trauma” vii is still a clinical description, and remains a “cultural trope,” but more so, it has become an expansive signifier of the terrible, both the life-changing and the minor, on the collective and personal levels. We speak of soldiers returning traumatized from war, of New Yorkers traumatized after 9/11, of New Orleans residents traumatized after Katrina, of traumatized kids after a divorce, of students traumatized after school shootings, and now, of being traumatized