Course Description

This course traces developments in trauma theory through films about 9/11. We will discuss national and transnational traumas triggered by 9/11 attacks in the US and by the War on Terror in South Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan). We will reflect on traumas of various subject positions including a witness, a perpetrator, a victim, and an implicated subject. Themes to be covered are memory, representation, repetition, testimony, temporality, inarticulacy, historical vs personal trauma, resilience, grief, and loss. We will also attend to the postcolonial and racial dimension of trauma exploring if Euro-American conceptualization of trauma accounts for the traumas of non-Western subjects. The films include Reign Over Me (2005), In the Name of God (2007), Extremely Lound and Incredibly Close (2011), and American Sniper (2014). Theoretical readings include works by Cathy Caruth, E. Ann Kaplan, Stef Craps and Michael Rothberg.

Course Reviews

Reviews coming soon.