Wounded: Studies in Literary and Cinematic Trauma

We live in an era of traumatic discourse. The wound (trauma is the Greek word for wound) speaks multiple languages. Often the trauma registered is political--the trauma of war in Syria Afghanistan Iraq and other nations and the concomitant European migrant crisis. Literature and films about Vietnam the Dirty War in Argentina 9/11 and perhaps above all the Holocaust abound. We encounter memoirs of survivors and now memoirs of the children of survivors. Furthermore the recent series of brutal and unjust actions toward unarmed blacks by white law officers is generating a new discourse of the long-standing trauma of race relations in the United States. Autobiographical and other narratives of family trauma are also flourishing. Memoirs by the dozen seek to come to terms with childhood and youthful experiences scarred by radical alienation between family members extreme poverty addictions of all kinds child and spousal abuse child molestation and parent-child incest sibling incest divorce suicide and murder. The eleven articles in this Special Issue employ a variety of interpretive approaches to traumas such as these as depicted in literature and film. The cultures of ancient Greece Germany Argentina the United States France and Chile are represented.