0:00 hello guys this video is on how to do research in trauma studies all of you might have heard of trauma studies the first thing to do when you're doing research in one area is obviously to know more about the area first question you should ask yourself is what is trauma studies get to know by google searching or reading in books attending conferences or watching videos like this trauma studies is a relatively new area
0:45 in cultural studies so that gives you another direction you should read more about cultural studies what is cultural studies what are the basic tenets of cultural studies how is it different from other theories who are the theorists for example raymond williams richard hogarth stewart hall and who are the specifically the theorists of trauma studies like this we need to know don't worry i am only asking you these questions i will answer many of these questions in the course of this video trauma studies first developed in the 1990s
1:33 as a theoretical movement it came in the trauma studies explores the impact of trauma the disruptive experience of trauma on individuals and societies many individuals and societies have undergone trauma how does it disrupt their identity reality how does it disrupt their language all these are studied by trauma studies trauma studies analyzes the psychological cultural and literary significance of trauma now you have to look at what theories are involved the first beginning of trauma studies
2:20 is from freud's even though it is only starting in the 1990s remember from the early 20th century sigmund freud's studies on hysteria had a big impact on studies of trauma it helps trauma studies theorists to develop an understanding of extreme trauma that lies beyond the limits of language you know how our language becomes limited because of the experience of trauma in novels that depict trauma for example language breaks down the psyche of characters get fragmented and meaning breaks down meaning gets ruptured trauma studies
3:05 looks into how this happens in freud's early work he argues that traumatic hysteria develops from repressed experiences of sexual assaults well freud always looked at psychosomatic illnesses in terms of psychological illnesses in terms of sexuality and he said that a memory of the experience of sexual assaults especially when it is repressed that is what gives rise to hysteria freud and brewer have you heard these names freud and joseph brewer they wrote studies in hysteria published
3:52 in 1895. here they emphasized that the original event was not traumatic in itself what is important is its remembrance that is what creates trauma it is not the even itself perhaps but the handling of it or the memory of it because the original event continues to inflict harm talking cure is required the psychoanalyst does talking cure why to understand the effects of the past and gain freedom from its symptoms trauma studies later brought together psychological approaches with post-structuralism and
4:37 post-colonialism trauma studies joined hands with post-structuralism post-colonialism and other socio-cultural theories today we can see all these approaches in trauma studies so you know that 1990s is when drama studies began but then i talked about freud what exactly is the history of trauma studies you should know history of trauma studies or whatever area that you are doing research in is very important do not ignore the development of the genre trauma studies began in 1990s drawing upon sigmund freud and his contemporaries like joseph brewer i told you that already
5:23 and they co-authored uh our studies in hysteria ma there are their contemporaries jean martin sharko who for the first time studied the relationship between trauma and mental illness and his student peer janae these are also important figures herman oppenheim abram cardinal who studied war trauma when you start research in an area look up the pioneers like this and read about them make notes about them all the major points you should write separately in a very structured manner ideally do it online
6:10 in a word file or something so that you'll be able to search and find when you write your dissertation later so all the background information you have to spend time reading you know research cannot be started in a one day or one week or one month you have to really do reading for at least six months thoroughly another contemporary of freud was martin prince now what does trauma studies actually explore so you first look at how identity and memory are affected by trauma how characters are affected by trauma and how it affects their identity
6:55 and memory how the individual's conception of the external world and social relationships are defined by trauma at the end of this video i'll illustrate this with some examples how the characters are affected by trauma how their relationships and perception of the external world changes due to trauma how trauma shapes language and representations how trauma is shaped by language and representations sometimes you cannot put trauma into language sometimes trauma changes your language also there is inter generational transmission of trauma so many examples you can think of like that
7:41 mothers daughters beloved which i'll be talking about at the end of this motherhood and trauma how grandmothers mothers and daughters you know in women women's writing um anita or shashi desh pandey or western women writers etc for example difficult daughters by manju kapoor is a an example in the generational transmission of trauma binding wine is another example now all kinds of trauma so that brings us to the understanding that the topic we are dealing with is not just a simple topic it has many manifestations many kinds are there henna you have to then identify what are the
8:27 kinds of trauma just google search first and from the tips or keywords that you get from google search you can search further and always look up the authors and works that you are seeing in articles people must have mentioned authors and works in articles there will be a bibliography in dissertations also find those books follow those names and titles you know so kinds of trauma one is psychological trauma one view regarding psychological trauma is that trauma disrupts language and suffering is unrepresentable that is one view there is also the view that unrepresentability of suffering is only only one of the responses to trauma
9:13 so how do people respond to trauma in different ways you should look up what are the different views of critics you should look up how can it be applied in your primary sources don't just stick to one or two ideas go on searching more and more think and google search again based on your thinking and interpretation read about people's interpretation of other works that will throw light on how to interpret your work studies on psychological trauma began with hysteria like i told you and you should also look up other words like ptsd post traumatic stress disorder developmental disorder
9:58 in children trauma related to war and terrorism trauma related to gender rape race trauma related to diseases perhaps our psycho physical disorders so that is one type another is collective and cultural trauma cultural sociology studies cultural sociology you know today english departments deal a lot with cultural sociology geography psychology other humanities are all related to english literature studies english literature is not just this study of novels and poetry like people sometimes think
10:43 english literature is like a springboard to all the other humanities to cultural studies even sciences are incomplete without cultural studies english literature is a comprehensive discipline that encompasses all these things cultural sociology studies cultural and collective trauma referring to the social processes that occur when groups endure horrendous events whole communities can undergo traumatic events like mass genocides for example holocaust or war the politics of terror an example would be sophie's choice a very good example would be sophie's choice by william styron
11:28 it is an important holocaust narrative i have mentioned two examples other examples here anne kaplan a very important theorist has written the book the politics of terror and laws in media and literature all the books i have put in green color the politics of terror and laws in media and literature by ann kaplan analyzes the impact of trauma on individuals as well as on cultures and nations traumatic realism by michael rothberg another book studies holocaust representations when you start research give yourself time don't rush write papers and blogs do wide reading
12:14 and then slowly you will arrive on a topic and then you can go deep into the topic and then you can start your research without background work do not start research because it'll cause trouble with for you you know as you do your research now we come to trauma in literature the study of trauma in literature began with kathy karuth very important theorist she wrote unclaimed experience trauma narrative and history here kathy karath asserts that in present times trauma has become universal every community everywhere there is trauma it is also very complex and bewildering
13:00 both as an experience and as a subject of study because of this our understanding of history also becomes complex and conflicting so the history narrated by the power wielders will be very different from the history uh narrated by from the perspective of the traumatized victims kali tal has written worlds of hurt reading the literatures of trauma that actually came before cathy carrick's book but kathy carrick's book established the the institution of trauma studies you know the discipline of trauma studies kalitas worlds of heard reading the
13:48 literatures of trauma it's another pioneering work where she has reviewed hundreds of scholarly works and presented hundreds of interviews with trauma survivors based on literature trauma studies also has a great impact on research in postcolonialism and gender now other pioneering works the trauma question by roger luckhurst please look up these titles read them read about them also even if you are not going to do research in trauma studies do it because you might get interested and you might end up doing some significant work in the area
14:35 trauma explorations in memory by kathy karat on traumatic knowledge and literary studies by jeffrey hartman he was one of the yale critics testimony testimony is a genre related to trauma studies crises of witnessing in literature psychoanalysis and history by shoshanna fellman and dory lorb now i will talk to you a little bit about books these are just a few books that people have already done trauma studies works on you can identify more texts like this based on the discussion we will do now just a brief introductory discussion surfacing by margaret atwood
15:23 tells the story of an unnamed female narrator who is traveling to quebec with her husband and with her boyfriend rather and there is also another couple with them this novel delves into the narrator's mind as she searches for her missing father and talks about how there is psychological trauma and the suppression of it in her mind leading to alienation and madness there are instances of childhood trauma because her parents separated the trauma of divorce the trauma of abortion and the loss of a child all these
16:09 intersecting in complicated ways to create the novel a deep analysis of the novel which people have already done will reveal to you how to do trauma studies research on more contemporary works a trauma narrative of another kind is second class citizen by buchi amita here buchi macheda creates the character ada a semi-autobiographical or autobiographical character who travels with her children to london and she undergoes several experiences of trauma gender discrimination in her nigerian society
16:56 as well as racial and gender oppression in london also trauma based on poverty this is an example of migrant communities and their trauma diasporic writers have written about it now the third novel i have mentioned here is janet armstrong's slash published in 1985 it was a pioneering work of native canadian literature slash presents historical trauma and oppression exploitation as well as deprivation of the native canadians that they have suffered for over 400
17:42 years you can also relate it to uh poems like aboriginal australia for example by jack davis these days in uh research projects even though our primary sources can be from a particular genre like novel we can also have a combined mixed source of primary materials or we can refer to it other disciplines and other genres in the course of the work you can refer to paintings and music blogs films all kinds of texts you can refer to in your research projects these days
18:29 even in the english department you don't have to stick to black and white printed books another very famous example of racial trauma is beloved by tony morrison which is intermingled with the theme of slavery the protagonist said there is a slave who has had to kill her daughter and the novel shows how slavery fragments and disorients said they the protagonist how it creates a fragmented selfhood or rather lack of selfhood how slavery and trauma associated with it can lead to deprivation and guilt
19:15 and mental disorder related books are color purple even though it's not about slavery as such the condition of c lee is almost like a slave and in both these novels intermingled with the trauma of slavery is a trauma of motherhood talk about rays shani muto has written serious blooms at night set in an imaginary caribbean town this novel talks about an old lady mala ramchandan recounting traumatic evens of personal and cultural history and memory personal memories of cultural trauma
20:01 personal and cultural trauma is the same the the theme is the same in the god of small things as well combined with the trauma of childhood caste and gender the narrative of the twins rahel and growing up in a remote part of india they are hunting past their traumatic experiences the death of their cousin the killing the police brutality on their mother's lover for being lower class on lower caste these memories are presented in this booker winning novel as disordered time
20:48 flashbacks dreams sometimes hallucinations and dark humor war and political trauma is the theme of anil's ghost by michael undache in borth on sri lanka themes of human rights postcoloniality and political violence narrated through the experiences of anil tasera a forensic scientist and sharath diazena political trauma is the theme of half of a yellow sun set against the biafran war or the nigerian civil war 2006 novel by chimamanda ngozi adichie
21:37 three characters perspectives are seen in the novel to show the psychological aftermath of mass violence so these are all important texts that people have already talked about in the context of trauma studies you can draw your narratives from partition narratives rape narratives war narratives narratives of illness and drug addiction etc read a lot think apply the theories that you read and enjoy wish you all the very best
