Trauma and Power in Postcolonial Literary Studies

Abstract

When, in 1995, Geoffrey Hartman presented trauma theory in his influential article “On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies” as offering a welcome “change of perspective” to literary studies, not only at the level of theory but also “of exegesis in the service of insights about human functioning” (544), he correctly predicted the huge impact that trauma theory would have on literary criticism. Part of the widespread impact of trauma theory has however been its critique by theorists and critics in the field who have pointed out many controversies, contradictions, and limitations in the theory originally conceptualized by Hartman, Cathy Caruth, and others of the Yale School. In postcolonial literary studies in particular, criticism of the dominant trauma paradigm has been a constant since trauma theory first appeared in this field. In 2008 several publications pointed out the limits of trauma theory for postcolonial studies, such as its depoliticizing and dehistoricizing tendencies. Roger Luckhurst remarked in The Trauma Question (2008) that in overlooking political concerns, trauma theory “shockingly fails to address atrocity, genocide and war” (213). In a special issue of Studies in the Novel (2008), devoted to a project to effectuate a “rapprochement” between trauma theory and postcolonial literary theory, trauma theory was presented in the introduction as having strengths for postcolonial literary studies to incorporate, but also weaknesses to be reconfigured.