ENGL 190-01, Perilous Lives; Precarious Stories: Trauma and Mourning in Contemporary World Literature, Spring 2015

Abstract

This class will explore texts haunted by literal and figurative ghosts. These ghosts, these fragmentary and disruptive remnants of a traumatic history, will offer us a way to investigate concepts of mourning, memory, trauma, and narrative. We will also examine how these texts attempt to communicate the seemingly incommunicable experiences of extreme pain and suffering. For example, Toni Morrison’s Beloved explores how the traumatizing institution of slavery haunts its victims; while Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods examines how a family and a community remain haunted by unearthed tales of wartime atrocities. This class will also provide an introduction to trauma theory. We will read from a selection of trauma theories, namely those posed by Sigmund Freud, Cathy Caruth, Kali Tal, and Jeffrey Alexander. Writing assignments will include a series of interpretive essays that address these concepts in the context of literary analysis.