ABSTRACT

Through case studies that examine historical and contemporary crises across the world, the contributing writers to this volume explore the cultural and social construction of trauma. How do some events get coded as traumatic and others which seem equally painful and dramatic not? Why do culpable groups often escape being categorised as perpetrators? These are just some of the important questions answered in this collection. Some of the cases analysed include Mao's China, the Holocaust, the Katyn Massacre and the Kosovo trauma. Expanding the pioneering cultural approach to trauma, this book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of sociology.

part |77 pages

National Suffering and World War

chapter |24 pages

A Fire That Doesn't Burn?

The Allied Bombing of Germany and the Cultural Politics of Trauma 1

chapter |25 pages

Revolutionary Trauma and Representation of the War

The Case of China in Mao's Era

part |109 pages

Ethnic Suffering and Civil War

part |103 pages

The Performance of Suffering and Healing

chapter |22 pages

Extending Trauma Across Cultural Divides

On Kidnapping and Solidarity in Colombia

chapter |24 pages

Claiming Trauma through Social Performance

The Case of Waiting for Godot 1

chapter |30 pages

The Worst Was the Silence

The Unfinished Drama of the Katyn Massacre

chapter |25 pages

Unassimilable Otherness

The Reworking of Traumas by Refugees in Contemporary South Africa