Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering

by Catherine Liu

How trauma became a weapon, by highly-acclaimed author of Virtue Hoarders

Traumatized traces the emergence and triumph of the concept of trauma in public life. From shell-shock and PTSD to the power of Oprah Winfrey and the authentic personal brand, Liu weaves together the history of this now ubiquitous idea and explains what it all means for our society.Trauma culture speaks to our current moment - the demise of liberalism, the expansion of social media, and the rise of surveillance capitalism. Trauma culture promised liberation from repression and oppression but has never delivered. Instead, it has been made into a weapon to individualise suffering, promoting a politics of false consensus. It undermines solidarity and eviscerated the foundations of liberal politics by demanding submission to a regime of vulnerability and accommodation. When suffering is all we have in common, what are we to do when we are all too traumatised to resist?

Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 29, 2026

About the author

Catherine Liu is the director of the University of California Irvine’s Humanities Center, a professor in Film and Media Studies, and the coeditor of The Dreams of Interpretation: A Century Down the Royal Road. She is the author of Oriental Girls Desire Romance (a novel), Copying Machines: Taking Notes for the Automaton, and American Idyll: Academic Antielitism as Cultural Critique.