ABSTRACT
Trigger warnings—written or spoken notifications attached to potentially sensitive materials in university settings—have been of particular interest in recent discussions of campus politics. It would be impossible to enumerate the types of materials that may be considered “triggering,” for, as Jenny Jarvie notes, trigger warnings “have been applied to topics as diverse as sex, pregnancy, addiction, bullying, suicide, sizeism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, slut shaming, victim-blaming, alcohol, blood, insects, small holes, and animals in wigs” (2014). Nevertheless, triggering items are most often considered to be depictions of hatred or violence directed at victims targeted by race, gender, or sexual identity. Over the past decade and a half, inter-net chatrooms, weblogs (blogs), and websites devoted to issues such as abuse, sexual assault, addiction, and self-harm have popularized the concept of the trauma trigger, initially borrowed from clinical literature on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
