Summary: Because traumatic events are unbearable in their horror
and intensity, they often exist as memories that are not
immediately recognizable as truth. Such experiences are best
understood not only through the straightforward acquisition of
facts but through a process of discovering where and why
conscious understanding and memory fail. Literature, according
to Cathy Caruth and others, opens a window on traumatic
experience because it teaches readers to listen to what ca
...show moren be told only in indirect and surprising ways.
Sociology, film, and political activism can also provide new
ways of thinking about and responding to the experience of
trauma. In Trauma and Memory, a distinguished group of analysts
and critics offer a compelling look at what literature and the
new approaches of a variety of clinical and theoretical
disciplines bring to the understanding of traumatic experience.
Combining two highly-acclaimed special issues of American Imago
edited by Caruth, this interdisciplinary collection