Politics Of Trauma Research Articles

Review of Michalinos Zembylas: The Politics of Trauma in Education

For years now, I have been teaching a graduate course that examines complexities of witnessing past and present social suffering and trauma through literature, media, and the arts. Reading Michalinos Zembylas’ book, The Politics of Trauma in Education (2008), I am excited. Here is a text I can readily employ in my class that will do justice to the issues and tensions of this subject matter. For me, the experience of reading this book is like accessing the fine-tuning button on my radio. I imagine that a keen but still rather uninformed reader can move from static to clarity about key insights from the field and the full challenges and possibilities for educational engagements with trauma. A reader like me, who has been engaged with these issues for almost two decades, has the opportunity to refine his/her understanding and receive important new wisdom. With this book I am reminded of all we need to take into account and engage with when we teach. I am inspired and energized. The book invites readers to consider the psycho-social, political, and ethical dimensions of traumatic events and their implications for educational theory and practice. It particularly emphasizes the historical and political roles and registers of affect in hopes of creating greater awareness of how affectively charged investments can alternately divide and bring us closer to each other. Zembylas argues for a communal translation of trauma into a ‘‘critical emotional praxis’’ grounded in the interrogation of paradigms of thought that govern and perpetuate intercultural conflict (p. 2). Such praxis, he believes, can orient us to new means for overturning historical grammars of oppression. The praxis, he elaborates, then, constitutes a work of mourning that introduces and strengthens alternate, more just and compassionate ways of relating to each other as individuals, communities, and nations.

Response to Claudia Eppert’s Review of The Politics of Trauma in Education

Response to Claudia Eppert’s Review of The Politics of Trauma in Education

The trauma of genocide

The trauma of genocide

Commentary: The Politics of Trauma and Asylum: Universals and Their Effects

Commentary: The Politics of Trauma and Asylum: Universals and Their Effects

Critical Evidence: The Politics of Trauma in French Asylum Policies

However obvious it might seem today that victims of persecutions suffer from psychological consequences of the violence inflicted on them, its political implications are a recent phenomenon. In the last decade, asylum seekers in France, as in other European countries, have been more and more often subject to demands of psychiatric expertise to prove the cogency of their claim to the status of refugee. This social innovation results from the convergence of two processes: on the one hand, the rapid decline in the legitimacy of asylum, leading to increasing expectations for evidence to establish the reality of persecutions; on the other hand, the emergence of trauma as a nosographical category legitimizing the traces of violence. At the crossroads of these two histories, a social field, mainly occupied by NGOs, has developed to answer this new need for proof from state institutions, with an increasing specialization on victims of torture and on psychic trauma, the two dimensions being partially independent. The final paradox is, however, that in a context of generalized suspicion toward refugees, the recognition of trauma at a collective level is counterbalanced by its limited impact on the evaluation of individual cases.

The politics of trauma: empathy, reconciliation and peace education

In this article I examine ways in which educators can use discourses of empathy and reconciliation to problematise the prevailing conflictive ethos in their curriculum and pedagogy. The ideals of empathy and reconciliation are examined through the lens of emotion; the emotional effects of trauma narratives raise a question that has been largely ignored in the peace education literature. Can (and should) educators work to contribute toward the goal of reconciliation when conflict and trauma have a social and political manifestation that is larger than the sum of traumatised students and teachers? If so, how is this possible—politically, pedagogically and emotionally? I discuss how it might be useful to consider the contribution of the notions of empathy and reconciliation to make educators and students aware that they are falling prey to the hegemonic power of trauma narratives. I also suggest that discourses of empathy and reconciliation in curriculum and pedagogy are critical components of the re‐formation of peace education goals in a conflict‐ridden society in the direction of re‐imagining commonalities (as well as dividing lines) with the Other.

Book Review: Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930

Book Review: Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930 Get access Lutz D.H. Sauerteig Lutz D.H. Sauerteig Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, University of Durham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 23, Issue 4, October 2005, Pages 572–573, https://doi.org/10.1177/026635540502300419 Published: 01 October 2005

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (review)

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (review)

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930. By Paul Lerner. Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry. Edited by, Sander L. Gilman and George J. Makari. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv+326. $39.95.

<i>Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930</i>. By Paul Lerner. Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry. Edited by, Sander L. Gilman and George J. Makari. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv+326. $39.95.

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease: April 2005 - Volume 193 - Issue 4 - p 281-282 doi: 10.1097/01.nmd.0000158370.15811.5b

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Paul Greenough and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, eds. Nature in the Global South: Environmental Projects in South and Southeast AsiaRobert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, eds. The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical PerspectiveChristopher Browning. Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar TestimonyPaul Lerner. Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930Thomas S. Langston. Uneasy Balance: Civil‐Military Relations in Peacetime America Since 1783Daniela Gioseffi, ed. Women on War: An International Anthology of Writings from Antiquity to the PresentHal M. Friedman. Creating an American Lake: United States Imperialism and Strategic Security in the Pacific Basin, 1945–1947Jennifer Light. From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War AmericaLawrence S. Wittner. Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (The Struggle against the Bomb)Roland Creagh and Sharif Gemie. The Shadows under the Lamp: Essays on September 11 and Afghanistan

The Politics of Trauma

The Politics of Trauma

Essay Review: Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930

Essay Review: Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930

Domestic violence and the politics of trauma

Synopsis Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has had a chequered history in relation to gender-based violence and specifically domestic violence. There is evidence that a significant proportion of women who are abused suffer from PTSD. However, there remains a controversy about whether this is a useful and progressive concept on which to base intervention. Mainstream mental health services in the UK have shown little ‘take up,’ while women's services supporting survivors also remain ambivalent, although for different reasons. Clinical psychology has been where the concept has been embraced. This paper highlights aspects of Judith Herman's (Herman, Judith (1992). Trauma and recovery . New York: Basic Books.) original intervention framework which have remained undeveloped, specifically the attention to social support and the need for an active social movement. These ideas have been marginalized in the development of professional and individualised approaches to survivors. It is suggested that reinvigorating these ideas would enhance the work with survivors and provide greater resonance with the underpinnings of work with women's services.

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (review)

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (review)

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany 1890-1930

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany 1890-1930

Reviews of Books:Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 Paul Lerner

Reviews of Books:Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 Paul Lerner

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (review)

Reviewed by: Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930 Donald Loffredo Lerner, Paul. Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003. xi + 326 pp. In his new book, Hysterical Men, Paul Lerner painstakingly chronicles the histories of trauma and male hysteria in German Society and the efforts of German Psychiatry and the German State to deal with both. Beginning with the industrial accidents of the 1880s, Lerner carefully reconstructs the evolution of male hysteria as a recognized psychiatric problem and the treatment systems designed to deal with it, particularly during and immediately after World War I. In this volume, Lerner manages to touch on the cultural history as well as the medical history of this important time in German History and presents both in an effective way. Lerner’s work provides an interesting and important link between the events of World War I and the emergence of the extreme German right-wing politics that ultimately led to the establishment of the Third Reich. One clearly gets a sense from Lerner’s work of the almost antiseptic way the German State dealt with its traumatized soldiers and its focus and concern more on pension policy than on the well-being of these broken men. Although some of the individuals seeking war-related pensions after World War I may have been malingering, most likely were not. Coupled with the draconian measures of the Versailles Treaty, it is not surprising that many traumatized returning soldiers identified with extreme right-wing accusations of “being stabbed in the back” by those running the German State. As Lerner points out, relations between mental health practitioners and traumatized patients deteriorated during the postwar years so much so that many doctors feared for their lives. According to Lerner, “many patients who were examined for war-related nervous or mental disorders complained that doctors harassed them, suspected them of political subversion and cast aspirations on their patriotism” (219). Given the plight of the German State after defeat, the Versailles Treaty, and the depletion of its financial resources, it seems clear after reading Lerner’s book why Germany may have focused more on the financial instead of the emotional costs of the war and in doing so failed to realize some of the terrible consequences that would follow. By initially presenting the state of German psychiatry at the beginning of the text, Lerner gives the reader the opportunity to see and understand the series of events that culminated in its failure to adequately serve the unprecedented number of damaged souls returning from the war. The plight of these individuals and that of German Psychiatry and the German State seems more clearly entwined and thus more sympathetic since the reader is presented with the larger issues. The middle chapters of Hysterical Men focus on the treatment systems developed to treat the traumatized and indicate some of the insensitivity of those who were supposed to heal. The detail of many of the treatments used is interesting and revealing. The concluding chapters of Hysterical Men are particularly illuminating in that they clearly reveal some of the terrible human and political costs of World War I and the inability of the Weimar Republic to deal with the despair, devastation, and sense of betrayal many traumatized soldiers must have experienced by a seemingly uncaring medical and political establishment. [End Page 307] Readers who are familiar or interested in history of the first half of the twentieth century will find Lerner’s book a useful contribution to understanding how World War I and the way it was unsuccessful resolved likely contributed to the extreme right-wing German politics that led to World War II. The scholarship that went into this book is laudable. The entire history presented is superbly researched and documented. Lerner’s Hysterical Men is likely to be an important contribution in understanding a tragic time in human history. Donald Loffredo University of Houston-Victoria Copyright © 2004 symploke

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930

Redeeming memories

Redeeming memories