Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature

by E. Ann Kaplan

It may be said that every trauma is two traumas or ten thousand-depending on the number of people involved. How one experiences and reacts to an event is unique and depends largely on one's direct or indirect positioning, personal psychic history, and individual memories. But equally important to the experience of trauma are the broader political and cultural contexts within which a catastrophe takes place and how it is "managed" by institutional forces, including the media.

In  Trauma Culture , E. Ann Kaplan explores the relationship between the impact of trauma on individuals and on entire cultures and nations. Arguing that humans possess a compelling need to draw meaning from personal experience and to communicate what happens to others, she examines the artistic, literary, and cinematic forms that are often used to bridge the individual and collective experience. A number of case studies, including Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism, Marguerite Duras' La Douleur, Sarah Kofman's Rue Ordener, Rue Labat, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, and Tracey Moffatt's Night Cries, reveal how empathy can be fostered without the sensationalistic element that typifies the media.

From World War II to 9/11, this passionate study eloquently navigates the contentious debates surrounding trauma theory and persuasively advocates the responsible sharing and translating of catastrophe.

Genres: Politics, Psychology, Nonfiction, Research, Cultural Studies, Theory, Philosophy

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2005

Reviews

[꒰ sonia ꒱ · Rating 2 out of 5]

i used this book for my research and unfortunately i couldn’t find there information that could be useful for me, however, the last chapter, where the author told about how the memorial of the 9/11 event was organized will come in handy.

trauma started to be analyzed and researched more deeply in the 20th century, as the first and the second world wars had occurred, but to picture it ethically and understandably for the viewers or readers can be done in different ways but not always effectively.

on an example of different media and events e. ann kaplan analyzed how does each creator express an experience of being traumatized. i was trying to look more for how are these ways of self-expression influence us, the readers, the viewers, the consumers, but could not really find it out in this book, that is why i give it two stars.

[Teleseparatist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucid and interesting, though the psychoanalytic bend was less interesting than I'd hoped.

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undoubtedly, the most useful portions of this book are Kaplan's careful connections between trauma theory (and language and stages associated with trauma) and the experiences of taking in media (particularly as related to film and news). For the most part, this work is done in the first half of the book, with later chapters being more fully devoted to film studies and close readings of these films and projects, including documentaries.

There are some frustrating aspects to this work, however: when not in a mode of "close reading", Kaplan tends to become heavily invested in the rhetoric of her subjects, sometimes asking so many questions (one after another, without break) that they simply become a barrage of quandaries--many of which are never answered, or in some cases, even addressed. Similarly, my impression is that some of her arguments are fairly one-sided. I'm not someone who is particularly versed in film and media studies, but Kaplan sometimes gives scathing critiques (particularly in regard to news reporting) which criticize without giving any suggestion of how things should be approached differently. For instance, she criticizes the fragmentary nature of reporting on war, from nightly news and from newspapers, particularly in her discussion of empty empathy and her argument against pushing viewers to understand one personal story instead of the larger issues; however, she fails to discuss, even briefly, how this might be accomplished when one stops to consider the attention span of the average news viewer/reader and time/monetary constraints of media companies. Also, and perhaps more troublingly, she argues that the problem with these personal stories (of victims, journalists, soldiers, etc.) are unable to transfer any understanding of the larger issues that Should be at the heart of any news coverage. I would argue, though, that the main point of these personal stories is to get audience members interested enough that they'll do their own part in researching or looking into those larger issues, or at least consider them. This may be an idealistic view, but is it less idealistic than attempting to educate on decades-long debates over abstract issues and wars, in the span of a single story or even a half-hour special? Regardless, it felt to me that Kaplan was one-sided, and perhaps even too biased to attempt the discussion, at this point in particular.

Similarly, there were other points when I would have preferred the book be a bit more objective--in the midst of her close-readings, in her discussion of 9/11 monuments, in her discussions of postcolonial contexts in film--and feel less like an airing of her personal views on the given topic. Simply, I wanted more argument with evidence, and more connection to trauma from her later close-readings. Instead, I felt I was often expected to just take Kaplan's word for her conclusions when it came to her close-readings. I've no real doubt that they're useful, but I do feel that there are probably other sides which she's making no effort to show, and that, at times, she gives nowhere near enough detail for someone to actually draw the same conclusions she does without taking her word that the connections, simply, make sense, particularly considering that some of the films she analyzes are admittedly obscure. (ie. She notes at one point that a little girl being strangled by seaweed can remind audiences of a fetus being strangled by an umbilical cord--I'll grant that, perhaps, the film accomplishes this jump, but she relates it as if it's an obvious conclusion based on her description of the scene/plot, which certainly isn't the case.)

In the end, parts of this book are incredibly successful, but other parts come across as unconnected at best, and unsupported or biased at worst, particularly as Kaplan gets further into the work. Also, I want to note that some of the endnotes are frighteningly unhelpful--as if an editor told Kaplan where to place the endnote, but not what for: though I did not read all of the endnotes, a few of the ones I did turn to ended up coming nowhere close to answering the questions I'd had raised by the noted text (which, as you might guess, was incredibly frustrating!).

In the end, I would recommend this work to those interested, but I'd highlight that the earlier chapters are the most useful, and that the connections she says will come through the close readings, as well as the questions she promises to return to...well, those don't always come to fruition in any visible way.

[Eric Steere · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaplan's work focuses on collective trauma and individual trauma, built on memories mixed with fantasies of prior catastrophes, on the particular cultural and political context within which a catastrophe takes place, and especially how it is “managed” by institutional forces. The divergence of European and American perspectives on 9/11 attacks underpin the real psychological trauma of a terror attack and processes of signification by exposure. The same argument could be extended in the consumption of media within the Palestinian Territories, Israel, and internationally. Leaders have now become risk managers for populations in an increasingly pictorial discourse; they have the ultimate symbolic power.

[Scott Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This recent addition otthe trauma literature approaches the issue predominantly from a perspective of cultural analysis - looking for traces of the impacts of trauma in writings, media and other sources of cultural material. It covers some interesting theoretical territory including psychological impacts, sociological impacts and ethical expressions. Kaplan's choice of materials to consider may not be familiar to many contemporary audiences and as such may not have the greatest impact. They do however effectively illustrative her key points.

[Robin]

I haven't actually read this whole book yet, but working on getting back to it.