Traumatic Imprints: Performance, Art, Literature and Theoretical Practice 9781848880856

Citation preview

Edited by

Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock and Danielle Mortimer

Trauma Imprints

At the Interface Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Daniel Riha Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris Mira Crouch Professor John Parry Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

An At the Interface research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/ The Evil Hub ‘Trauma’

2011

Trauma Imprints: Performance, Art, Literature and Theoretical Practice

Edited by

Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock and Danielle Mortimer

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-085-6 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2011. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock and Danielle Mortimer

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PART 1 Performative Traumas Trauma and Recovery through Art: The Construction of Self Catherine Barrette

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Fathers and Sons: An Autoethnographic Case Study of Bereavement and Trauma Peter Bray and Oliver Bray

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Trauma and Identity in Gaza: Shooting a Cast Lead Elephant Jeanne E. Clark

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Looking at the Iraq War with ‘Eyes Wide Open’: Trauma, Memory and Ethics Catherine Ann Collins

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Be Careful with that Trauma, Christoph: Schlingensief’s Dissensual Staging of the Unrepresentable Janus Currie

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Etiquette of Grief Ellie Harrison

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Dying on TV: Traumatic Encounter, on Screen and for Real Misha Kavka

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Public Hearing of Private Griefs: Investigating the Performance of History in Jane Taylor’s Ubu and the Truth Commission and John Kani’s Nothing but the Truth Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt

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PART 2 Literary Traumas ‘He looks at me as if I were a dog’: Representations of Shame and Trauma in the Fiction of Jean Rhys Jack Dawson

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Enlisting Rage and Speaking Place: Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria Bridget Haylock

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Crane meets Cranium: The Crisis of Representing Trauma in Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker Carolin Alice Hofmann

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Locating the Trauma Womb: Ricardo Piglia’s Absent City E.A. Leonard

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Trauma, Memory and Identity in Australian War Fiction: A Practitioner’s Viewpoint Tessa Lunney

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The Trauma of the Ephemeral Body in Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised and Oskar Roehler’s Elementarteilchen Imola Mikó

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Trauma and the Condition of the Postmodern Identity Danielle Mortimer

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Writing Torture’s Remnants: Sovereign Power, Affect and the War on Terror Michael Richardson

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Because Memory is Also a Prison: The Holocaust and the Question of Representing Trauma in the Memoirs of Ruth Elias and Ruth Klüger Anabela Valente Simões

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Collective Trauma in Modern Afrikaans Fiction Cilliers van den Berg

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PART 3 Theorising Trauma in Practice A Jungian Approach to Understanding and Treating Adopted Children who were Traumatized Prior to Their Adoption Mark Bortz

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Trauma to the Body Politic: Impacts and Adjustments Following Political Assassination William W. Bostock

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Criticizing Collective Trauma: A Plea for a Fundamental Social Psychological Reflection of Traumatization Processes Markus Brunner

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Destabilizing Narratives of Values and Belief Systems: Identity Trauma in Warfare Pamela Creed

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A Feel for the Organism: Cultural and Methodological Contexts of Trauma Psychology from a Somatic-Energetic Perspective Philip M. Helfaer

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Psychoanalysis and Trauma: Changes in the Theory and the Practice, from Freud to the Shoah Clara Mucci

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Touring the Traumascape: ‘War Tours’ in Sarajevo Patrick Naef

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Persistence and Transformation of Cultural Trauma: Commemoration of Soviet Deportations in the Media of Post-Soviet Latvia (1987-2010) Olga Procevska, Mārtiņš Kaprāns and Laura Uzule

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Finding a Voice Sue Robinson

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Modern Turkey, a Traumatized Society: The Repressed Experience of Torture and Killing after the Putsch in 1980 Georg Friedrich Simet

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The Effect of a Guided Narrative Technique among Children Traumatised by the Earthquake Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox

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Introduction Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock, and Danielle Mortimer This eBook presents an international scholarly collection of chapters which interrogate trauma, its ramifications, and expression as a r esult of InterDisciplinary.Net sponsoring the first Global Conference on Trauma: Theory and Practice, held in Prague, Czech Republic in March 2011. Held over three days, the conference was designed to encourage participants to focus on questions that emanate from notions of both individual and collective trauma. It promoted a multi-disciplinary approach to this subject. Consequently the selection of chapters represented work from a wide array of disciplines. This eBook offers a snapshot of the conference proceedings, in which multiple approaches to similar questions were taken and new questions were asked in a series of chapters that spoke to and enhanced one another, even when disagreements arose between the approaches taken. Trauma has become a dominant and vital method of reading the events of both recent history and contemporary culture. An explanation for the speed with which trauma studies has broken away from its beginnings in the field of psychoanalysis can partly be found in the flexibility of trauma theory as a method for reading both the event itself and the reaction to the event. As was demonstrated by many of the chapters given at the conference, it is the reaction to the event which can constitute the majority of its traumatic impact. An important way the reaction to an event is rendered traumatic is through the pressure the memory of the event exerts upon language, pushing at the boundaries of what can be represented until silence overtakes the attempt to speak. One of the major themes of the conference was an agreement on the gulf that arises between the urge to represent trauma or to critically assess representations of trauma, and the unrepresentable nature of the traumatic event itself. Although this topic has been dealt with in special edition journals and edited collections before, what made discussion of these problems unique at the conference was the inter-/multi-disciplinary nature of the works presented. There emerged within the speakers’ chapters, two types of attempts to interact with the problem of representing trauma; a p ractical type and a t heoretical one. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the work of many of the speakers, there was a l arge amount of crossover between these two approaches, and also great diversity in how the two categories, practical and theoretical, were defined. Two theatrical pieces were shown during the conference and are well documented in the written chapters. Here, the presenters chose to transform their personal mourning into performance. Ellie Harrison explored bereavement in relation to individual and collective identity in theatre making, while Peter and Oliver Bray weaved together the thoughts and recollections of three generations of

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__________________________________________________________________ men touched by loss, trauma, and grief. Both chapters also examined the place of comedy within the process of mourning. In other presentations, speakers considered trauma in relation to creative production. Catherine Ann Collins and Misha Kavka highlighted how visual artworks can negotiate a traumatic experience and create a discursive space, and language evokes personal and collective responses. Kavka focussed on the recent fascination with televising death on-screen, examining both autobiographical film and reality television to determine how the traumatic encounter with death is mediated through its presence on the screen. Collins explores the effects of Eyes Wide Open, a U.S. travelling community memorial developed by the American Friends Service Organization (AFSC), which uses visual exhibitions to metonymically represent the cultural and personal effects of the Iraq War. Other speakers chose to present exhibitions and artist’s works through the relation between such trauma, memory and identity, such as Jeanne E. Clark’s work on documentary film and testimony that arose in relation to the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza. Yet others examined the issue of unrepresentability as a starting point to explore the remediation of historic trauma in contemporary aesthetic practice which attempts to challenge current systems of exclusion, as with Janus Currie’s examination of Christoph Schlingensief’s public performance art. Through differing forms and images, work on trauma appears to want to escape pain, to sublimate it, to work past it. This was shown through the self-reflective chapter given by Catherine Barrette on her artistic exploration of the issues surrounding trauma through paintings, drawings and installation works. Indeed, creative works address the core question of speaking the past, in order to mediate the tension between the desire for retribution on the one hand and the need for reconciliation on the other. Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt considered this tension through a South-African context in the plays of Jane Taylor and John Kani. In contrast to these productions of original artistic representations of trauma, literary scholars interrogated the efficacy of, and issues with, existing literary representations of trauma through engagement with critical and theoretical perspectives. Chapters given questioned the relationship between the artistic production, the artist’s personal experience and trauma as a social and collective concept within culture. The chapters investigating literary interpretations of trauma can be loosely divided into those concerned with memory and individual trauma – a writing of the unknown – and those narrating collective trauma – the writing of the unspeakable. However, the distinction between the personal and political, between the individual and the collective, is often blurred; hence questions of identity arise. The complex post/colonial issues of South African and Australian societies offer cogent examples of history as symptom of collective traumatic experience, as highlighted in the chapters given by Cilliers van den Berg and Bridget Haylock. Chapters examined the issue of the ‘crisis of representation,’ noting that the act of producing

Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock and Danielle Mortimer

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__________________________________________________________________ creative writing itself becomes a d emonstration of that which is deemed unrepresentable, as Carolin Alice Hofmann noted in her chapter on the work of writer Richard Powers. Literary depictions of trauma function to bear witness and testify to traumatic experience, since they break the silence and also redefine discourse, challenging memory and identity. In traumatic silence there is denial and inequity. The traumatised subject is compelled to deny that she witnesses her own subjectivity, and it is at this point that the role of shame and its link to trauma was analysed in chapters at the conference. Jack Dawson’s chapter focused on the extent to which trauma and shame are conjoined within, and together haunt, the fiction of Jean Rhys, while Michael Richardson examines the balance of power in the silences and rhetoric that surround the American use of torture in the war on terror. It is in the engagement with writing that the unspeakable emerges from the aporia in consciousness and releases its repressive energy. However, paradoxically, language and narrative facilitates testimony only when unbearable silence reveals the horror that it attempts to conceal. The universality of this paradox, and the flexibility of trauma theory in general is shown by the fact that two very different speakers at the conference focused specifically upon it. E.A. Leonard did so through an examination of a novel by Argentine author Ricardo Piglia, set during the government’s ‘reorganisation’ or ‘unification’ of the country, whilst Tessa Lunney focussed upon her own literary practice as a writer of Australian war fiction. The postmodern condition offers the literary/trauma critic a challenge to redefine the traumatic paradigm; what is instead discovered is endless repetition of the present hyperreal, as was discussed by Danielle Mortimer in relation to the work of Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. Trauma is often hidden in the body, which is the target of, and the medium of representation for political, cultural and gender inscription; corporeality then becomes a valuable trope of trauma for literary investigation as was shown by Imola Mikó in her work on the controversial novel Atomised, and its translation into a cinematic text. The feminine traumatic paradigm, which manifests as encounters with aspects of the phallocentric world, facilitates traumatic repetition. Experiences of opposition and denial serve to spur a fervent conviction for female agency, and to find creative and cathartic expression in writing, or écriture feminine, as Anabela Valente Simões argued in her chapter on the Holocaust testimonies of Ruth Elias and Ruth Klüger. Within the more practical and psychologically-driven chapters, the complexities of stabilising what the term trauma denotes became entwined with questions of whether individual or collective accounts and studies of trauma work best to define it. In their acts of demarcating trauma, the speakers who dealt with trauma in a practical capacity took radically different approaches. Some speakers, such as William W. Bostock in his work on political assassination, explicitly argued that trauma can be a collective phenomenon, and should be studied as such,

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__________________________________________________________________ while others, like Patrick Naef in his work on the Sarajevo trauma-site tourist trade, implicitly assumed a level of collectively in the experience, representation and study of trauma. Others argued against the notion of collective trauma and the study of trauma as a collective phenomenon, either openly within their chapters, as with Markus Brunner’s criticism of the notion of collective trauma and his warning for a more controlled use of the term trauma in general, or Philip M. Helfaer in his desire for a more body-focussed and body-specific method of treating trauma. Alternatively, speakers simply eschewed a collective theoretical approach by examining specific traumas through individual case studies or individualised methods of storytelling. Mark Bortz looked at the specific case study of a young boy, traumatised and then adopted by loving parents, who produced a series of sand trays into which Bortz reads a r epresentation of the boy’s mental health and subsequent rehabilitation through therapy. Georg Friedrich Simet presented a s eries of case studies of abuse and torture, connected to the political unrest in Turkey during the 1980s. Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox explored the effectiveness for Chinese children of specific techniques aimed at allowing trauma survivors to speak their trauma and consequently to alleviate their symptoms of PostTraumatic-Stress Disorder. For other speakers, it is the specific tension that arises between the individual experience and the collective representation that can contribute to or create the trauma itself. In their chapter, Olga Procevska, Mārtiņš Kaprāns and Laura Uzule analysed the way Joseph Stalin’s extermination of sixty-thousand Latvians was initially repressed, and then expressed, in the local and national Latvian-based and Russian-run press, and the conflicts that arose in their representations. Creed, by contrast, focused on the testimony of one American soldier and his alienation from his previous values through the discrepancies of the media presentation of the war in Iraq, and his personal experiences of it. The notion of whether it is possible to represent trauma was heavily touted within the literary, performance and theoretical chapters of the conference. Sue Robinson, in her workshop, ‘Finding a Voice,’ examined and prioritised the role of language in the aftermath of trauma, while Clara Mucci highlighted the vitality of a verbal engagement with the past in order to move forward. For Mucci, acquiring language about the event is not enough however. In order to allow the trauma survivor and future generations to work past the traumatic event, trauma survivors’ retellings of trauma, she argued, must be accurate reconstructions, rather than creative constructions. Overall, throughout the conference different discourses about the notion and nature of the term trauma were raised in friendly dialogue with one another, creating a f ertile atmosphere of both exchange and potential change. We are grateful for the support of Collette Balmain, Rob Fisher, and Daniel Riha from Inter.Disciplinary.Net.

PART 1 Performative Traumas

Trauma and Recovery through Art: The Construction of Self Catherine Barrette Abstract In current debates in trauma studies, theorists often raise the important question of whether and in what mode trauma can be represented. Where the discourse seems to coincide is how visual artists attempt to raise discussion around this question by their particular use of experimental strategies. In my artistic practice, I have been exploring the issues surrounding trauma through my paintings and drawings and, more recently, through installation works. My personal circumstances provide a unique platform from which to engage in this experimental art practice. I am a polytrauma survivor and an above-knee amputee following a serious motor vehicle accident several years ago. One of my main objectives is to explore the effects of enduring significant wounds on the body and mind. My artistic process can be described as a coming to terms with my changed sense of self and the construction of my post-traumatic identity. This chapter will discuss my artwork as an exploration of art’s relationship to trauma through the dialectic of shattered body and psyche, and through the narrative constructs that the recovery process requires. At once a personal account of recovery and an exploration of trauma, this chapter examines the undoing and remaking of self in the aftermath of trauma. Key Words: Artworking, mourning, post-traumatic identity, trauma, resilience. ***** 1. Introduction To heal, in its etymological meaning, is to make whole. Trauma, with its psychic violence and sudden disruption, makes us suffer from lack of wholeness. How can we understand this fragmentation, this lack of wholeness in relation to finding meaning after tragic events? How can we come to terms with this changed sense of self? I will explore how the process of art making can take into account and make visible the different fragments of self after trauma. Often, this indirect route of communicating the journey from devastation to recovery enables the gathering and assembling of fragments into a meaningful whole. More specifically, I will describe my artistic process in which I address my trauma obliquely, refraining from depicting narrative description to look instead at the present lieu of the traumatic inscription. I will address these questions from an artist/researcher position with a s cholarly approach embedded within the creative process. I believe that these strategies contribute to a better understanding of trauma, loss, resilience and the remaking of self.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Trauma and Mourning On 21 J anuary 1997, I was waiting to cross the street when two vehicles collided. The impact sent a truck careening into me, throwing me against a tree. My injuries included collapsed lungs, brain trauma and swelling, loss of blood, broken bones and tissue damage. My left leg was badly damaged and subsequently amputated above the knee. I do not remember the accident and have only patchy memories of the first week at the hospital. The injuries were so serious that my doctors doubted that I would survive. My first flashes of reality were of agonising pain, panic and fear. These initial moments clearly illustrate the Freudian definition of ‘psychic traumata:’ a psychic deformation and symbolic wound where the usual way of dealing with or processing an experience fails. 1 In the months that followed, the ensuing surgeries and medical interventions were effective. I continued physical rehabilitation for my broken bones, amputated leg and traumatic brain injury for several years. The events of this accident caused great discontinuities in my life that took years to reconcile. Eight months after the accident, I returned to work part time and faced difficult physical and emotional sequelae that eroded my strength. It took five years and five different positions to admit my failings and resign myself to letting go of former ambitions. Paradoxically, acknowledging my limitations enabled me to recognise my need to express my ideas through visual means. After resigning from my employment in 2003, I began my studies in Fine Arts where I revisited the subject matter of the accident and painted several artefacts from my tragic event. My representative work in painting was not unlike the psychological work of analysis. I reacted to the facts and events of the accident and began staging potential encounters with objects to mourn lost facets of my life: former ambitions, freedom of movement, cognitive abilities and identity. Mourning is the feeling or manifestation of profound sorrow implying deep emotions felt over time. In his book The New Black, Darian Leader describes the process of mourning a lost loved one in the following words: In mourning, our memories and hopes linked to the one we’ve lost are run through, and each is met with the judgment that the person is no longer there. This process of surveying and reshuffling thoughts and images will eventually exhaust itself, and the mourner will choose life over death. 2 My artistic process was my way of what Darian Leader calls ‘killing the dead’ and helped to symbolically put to rest the imagery of the accident. 3 Leader proposes that killing the dead is an essential part of the work of mourning and a way of loosening one’s bonds to the lost object. 4 Killing the dead is central to many aspects of popular culture. 5 It involves a person’s symbolic death, which

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__________________________________________________________________ Leader argues is for the mourner different from the person’s real biological death. Specific to each person’s course of mourning, the process of killing the dead makes it possible to create new ties with the living. 6 I found through the arts a process to mourn and begin reconfiguring my fragmented life. 3. Artworking My artistic practice centres on representing trauma as it serves to mourn deep emotions about my serious accident and make the necessary internal transformations regarding my losses. The artist and psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger uses the term ‘artworking’ to characterise her own painting practice at this threshold between trauma and representation. My practice can be considered a type of psychic working or, in Ettinger’s words, a ‘transport­station of trauma’ worked over time. Such transport­station not only helps to alleviate the pain of loss but also plays a significant role in reclaiming one’s own life. 7 I would like to further Ettinger’s definition of artworking by describing my artwork where I explore the process of coming to terms with my changed sense of self and begin forming my post-traumatic identity. In my case, I do not limit my interest to representing trauma in narrative terms or expressing painful experiences in abstract forms. I represent the trauma through aesthetic means with the intention of generating emotions for the viewer without necessarily communicating my personal experience; it is through this affective encounter that the viewer engages aesthetically with my work. As part of this continued artworking process, I painted the tree I was thrown against in my accident. I returned to the accident site and took several detailed photographs of the tree, its branches and the surrounding area. Despite the fact that a decade had passed since my accident, the tree still bore a gouge where the truck had pinned me against its trunk. I then painted the tree in a static, fragmented version emphasising its trunk and branching structure. My underlying purpose was to explore the registration of the tree through my fragmented memory. Tree (2008) is painted on canvas using tar and a dark palette of oil paints. In this larger-than-life painting, my tree reveals itself through the repetition of broken geometric forms, allowing for a f ractured impression of the trunk. In Tree, the visible physical wounds and impact scar of the accident meet the viewer’s gaze in the forefront of the composition. Washed out tar and paint blotches form the trunk while fragile lines evoke branches reaching out to the sky. The tumultuous shapes and boundaries of the trunk mirror the brutal psychic redefinition of the self’s own territory following trauma. Through this piece of artwork, I am attempting to evoke sensation and affect to show the experience of trauma.

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Tree (2008), oil on canvas, 10’ X 6’ Jill Bennett, an art historian engaged in furthering the study of cultural trauma, proposes that through visual means, the affective quality of artwork contributes to a new understanding of the experiences of trauma and loss. Bennett understands affect as the effect a given object or practice has on the viewer and his or her embodied reaction. 8 Bennett’s theories broaden the psychoanalytical investigation of trauma studies of theorists such as Cathy Caruth. 9 Bennett proposes a formal innovation: a ‘communicable language of sensation and affect with which to register something of the experience of traumatic memory.’ 10 According to her, defining this new language for trauma through art opens up a contemporary discourse on the lived experience and memories of trauma. With my artwork, I hope to represent the conflict and loss surrounding my traumatic experience and thus participate in defining Bennett’s language for representing trauma. Tree is an example of how artworking can be used to explore new perspectives on life after trauma. My examination and transformation of the tree made me notice that the accident impact mark on the tree trunk had changed positions in the last decade; the tree was resilient and had even grown despite being ‘injured’ in the accident. It seems to me that the tree is an apt metaphor in the case of resilience, representing the capacity to positively adapt to a n ew situation in the face of adversity. Resilience is also the product of the dynamic interaction between a range of risks and protective factors internal and external to a person at various stages of his or her life. 11 It is therefore a d ynamic process that can lead to adaptive outcomes in the face of difficulties; it is not a fixed state nor is it unchangeable over time. For me, resilience can be viewed as a process, a give and take between myself and my environment, rather than a static characteristic or personality trait. 12 Just as the strength of the trunk protected the tree, thereby allowing it to continue

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__________________________________________________________________ to grow, my resilient self assisted me in weathering the negative effects of my trauma. I am particularly fascinated by how artworking uses imagination to reframe loss after trauma. Resisting closure, artworking makes us approach trauma binaries of past and present, victim and victimiser, spectacle and spectator through a transformative process. In engaging with issues of trauma, resilience and artworking can explore memory through a self-reflective engagement. Artworking lends support to the centrality of the enabling and protective function of belief in one’s capability to exercise some measure of control over traumatic adversity. This perceived coping self-efficacy emerges as a focal mediator of recovery and healing. 13 For the traumatised individual, artworking can assist in communicating thoughts, experiences and self-perceptions that are beneficial and, I believe, cognitively necessary. This is because traumatic experiences are so disruptive that they are unlikely to be transferred to memory in lexical terms. They must be stored as sensory or iconic schemas. Such schemas can be inflexible and remain unavailable to the individual. For this reason, artworking provides a schema-based process through which traumatised individuals can render their inner experiences visible through images and therefore better represent their trauma. 4. Representing Trauma My continued artworking process subsequently led me to explore the body in figurative paintings and drawings to represent trauma. Greatly inspired by other artists such as Frieda Kahlo, I found the courage to use my own body in my artwork. Body Series (2009) includes thirty-two drawings depicting an almost filmic rendition of different poses I photographed myself in. In Body 13, the visible physical wounds and scar of my amputation meet the gaze of the viewer in the forefront of the composition; washed out gouache blotches the body, while repeated lines evoke body movements.

Body 13 (2009), charcoal and gouache on paper, 16’ X 20’

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__________________________________________________________________ Much of my symbolic practice relating to trauma blurs the distinction between the inside and the outside of the body; it e ncourages a fluid reading in which meaning moves freely. In Body Series, the tumultuous lines and boundaries mirror the violent psychic redefinition of the self’s own territory, often edged by messy paint, metaphorically referring to the body’s abject fluids. The fragmented topography of the drawings and the presence of the gouache signal the violence and traumatic nature of the accident. Body Series attempts to represent the physical and psychic trauma my body endured as a r esult of my accident. Through this artwork, my aesthetic strategies ask the viewer to encounter trauma through disjuncture and dissonance. New forms of physical presence and beauty can be found, as the viewer needs to make an internal effort to be able to understand the experience of trauma. The artwork here extends beyond the object to describe the experience of loss, emotional distress and process of adapting to change and creating new ties with the living. The drawings in Body Series demonstrate how embodiment acts as the point of exchange between the self and the world to become a discourse on representing trauma. I believe that it is only through this process of repetition and reshuffling that we can attempt to represent trauma and begin to define our post-traumatic identity. 5. Forming a Post-traumatic Identity Defining my post-traumatic identity includes living with changed body morphology because of my above-knee amputation, wearing a p rosthesis and living with a disability. You could say that my disability acquires an aesthetic value as I incorporate images of my amputated body into my work. Through Merleau-Ponty theories, I have begun to understand how trauma did not necessarily disrupt the unity of my bodily experience. Through embodiment, my lived experience constantly moves toward equilibrium. The body can ‘extend’ an object, for example, how my prosthesis extends my leg, so that it literally becomes part of my body. This extension, named ‘bodily synthesis’ by MerleauPonty, is a search for equilibrium that is central to the adjustment I needed to make with my amputation and forming a post-traumatic identity. 14 In my continued research, I became interested in representing trauma and my new sense of body awareness. Legs (2010), comprised of two black and white photographs, depicts the lower half of my body sitting on a hardwood floor. The first image shows my left amputated stump, a small gap and a sculpted leg placed on the floor. Replacing the amputated section, the ceramic sculpture, glazed in a weathered bone-like finish, replicates the missing leg. The sculpture haunts the viewer, as the ceramic leg sits lifeless, a senseless replica that cannot function at all. I sculpted this ceramic leg during an artistic residency with a true desire to come into contact once again with my missing body part. When my right foot touches the ceramic sculpture, I can feel a sensation through the replicated leg.

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Legs (2010), digital print, 8’ x 16’ The second image shows my prosthesis extending from my socket to my knee unit and ending with the plastic covering for my mechanical foot. While the prosthesis is fabricated, it necessarily connects to my lower body configuration to be able to function. Where my right foot touches the prosthesis, I can feel the stroking sensation in my body. My prosthesis is clearly part of my body. I embody my environment through my prosthetic flesh and my sense of space is established according to this particular body image. Legs assisted me in re-visualising and ‘re-awaring’ my traumatised body in and to its environment in its surrounding space, a phenomenological approach enabling a post-traumatic identity to begin to be defined. As such, the description of one’s lived experience is changed from an objectifying purpose to one of articulating one’s bodily position within certain conditions of space and its surrounding objects. This enables a more interpretive and fluid understanding of trauma in relation to the body and identity formation. 6. Conclusion These works engage both the body and trauma in a reflexive artworking process. They deal with the difficult events and painful images of traumatic events, while still producing art that is engaging to the viewer. My experience confirms that a commitment to artworking can transform trauma and assist one in coming to terms with the wounds and suffering of tragic incidents and forming a posttraumatic identity. I believe that an artworking approach based on imagination is effective for comprehending the essence of trauma. Shaping and encompassing the chaos and fragmentation of the traumatic experience through an artworking process is a critical component of post-traumatic identity formation. Art has an affective reality

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__________________________________________________________________ on people: it creates an impact by touching us through our senses and inciting meaningful change. Through artworking, we can speak, dance, sing, and enact scenes not in order to deny the fragmentation caused by the trauma but to reveal it. This revelation is also about post-traumatic healing: a transformation and gathering up of the disjointed parts into a fragmented whole. Indeed, healing after trauma implies the acceptance of fragmentation as a permanent part of human existence.

Notes 1

S. Freud and J. Rickman, ‘The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis’, A General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud, Doubleday Anchor Books, New York, 1957, pp. 6-7. 2 D. Leader, The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia, and Depression, Hamish Hamilton, London, 2008, p. 60. 3 Ibid., p. 114. 4 Ibid., p. 124. 5 Ibid., p. 116. 6 Ibid., p. 124. 7 B. Lichtenberg-Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: Artworking, 1985-1999, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 2000, p. 91. 8 J. Bennett, Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art (Cultural Memory in the Present), Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2005, p. 2. 9 See C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996. 10 Bennett, p. 2. 11 S.J. Lepore and T.A. Revenson, ‘Relationships between Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience: Recovery, Resistance and Reconfiguration’, Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice, L. Calhoun and R. Tedeschi (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 2006, p. 29. 12 C.M. Aldwin and K.J. Sutton, ‘A Developmental Perspective on Posttraumatic Growth’, in Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis, R. Tedeschi, C. Park and L. Calhoun (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 1998, p. 65. 13 H. Tennen and G. Affleck, ‘Personality and Transformation in the Face of Adversity’, Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis, R. Tedeschi, C. Park and L. Calhoun (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 1998, pp. 43-63. 14 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 171.

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Bibliography Aldwin, C.M. and Sutton, K.J., ‘A Developmental Perspective on Posttraumatic Growth’. Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis. R. Tedeschi, C. Park and L. Calhoun (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 1998. Bennett, J., Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art (Cultural Memory in the Present). Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2005. Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996. Freud, S. and Rickman, J., A General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud. Liveright, New York, 1957. Lepore, S.J. and Revenson, T.A., ‘Relationships between Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience: Recovery, Resistance, and Reconfiguration’. Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice. L. Calhoun and R. Tedeschi (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 2006. Leader, D., The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression. Hamish Hamilton, London, 2008. Lichtenberg-Ettinger, B., Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: Artworking, 1985-1999. Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 2000. Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, London, 2002. Tennen, H. and Affleck, G., ‘Personality and Transformation in the Face of Adversity’. Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis. R. Tedeschi, C. Park and L. Calhoun (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 1998. Catherine Barrette is a P hD candidate in Philosophy (Special Individualised Program) at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Through an artist/researcher position with a s cholarly approach embedded within the creative process, her research and writing investigates how artistic practice can transform trauma.

Fathers and Sons: An Autoethnographic Case Study of Bereavement and Trauma Peter Bray and Oliver Bray Abstract Just before Sam died, his son Peter travelled from his home in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, to conduct some preliminary research with his son Oliver who lives in Leeds, Great Britain. With Peter’s interests in loss, post-traumatic growth and transpersonal experiences and Oliver’s in theatre making, performance and pedagogy they began to discover that they shared much common ground. Shortly after their time together Peter travelled to Moscow to deliver a paper on Hamlet. What follows is a weaving of the thoughts and recollections of three generations of men touched by loss, trauma and grief. Key Words: Autoethnography, consciousness, father, ghost, grief, loss, performance, son, transpersonal, trauma. ***** I knew that Dad was going to die This is my search for healing Call it therapy Call it control Makes it real So I can mourn Take it or leave Take it. This has been more difficult to recall than I could have imagined. This inevitable loss unpacks all

I knew that Granddad was going to die This is my search for what needs to be healed Call it indulgent Make it holy Makes it holey Understand it wholly But don’t leave it I am in the business of meaning making, quite literally. The theatremaker designs the conditions for

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__________________________________________________________________ previous accumulating losses in my life: the divorces and forced separations from family; becoming an immigrant; and, the accidental deaths of my sons and wife. The death of my father affects me intellectually and viscerally, igniting memory and forcing a reremembering, retelling and reconstruction of all losses and all traumas. Nothing will be as it was. The ghosts of these events demand attention and there is no going back. What does that mean? Sam’s death challenges us to talk together.

Even as I was anticipating Dad’s death I selfishly didn’t want it to interrupt my relationship with my son whom I hadn’t seen for a few months. I had been anticipating and savouring this time together after ten years of fleeting meetings. A wonderful chance to learn from him and share our creativity – to make something of us. The plan was to become reacquainted and map out common personal and academic ground. What unfolded was a s hared interest in the disclosure and the illumination of reality or truth through creative processes and - that play Hamlet. By performing the self the individual is able to see more clearly and understand his or her self in action.

potential meaning. Meaning is slippery, it cannot be projected, it can only be genuinely created by the individual who registers it. Meaning exists only in the moment of perception. I consciously suffer (and therefore understand) bereavement when I think about bereavement. I’m thinking about it now, what my father and I have suffered and continue to suffer - I can’t help but want to think about something else. What does that mean? A year earlier we had organised to do some joint research. This meant, curiously, that we all happened to be together in England at the time that Granddad died. The influential factors of our lives are created by the environment, us, and those around us - together, all shifting our perceptions and context. That is where the responsibility lies, not on the shoulders of those it involves, but the frame they find themselves in and it’s chaotic - too many variables, too much to try and control. T his is why the condition of performance is so tantalising. It’s a vacuum, a s pace where the variables can be vetted and controlled - like the pages of this document - ink and paper, pixels on a computer screen - and that is all.

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__________________________________________________________________ In counselling, the therapeutic space provides opportunities to safely explore the experience of a traumatic event. The counsellor supports clients to reframe experiences and create new meaning and purpose for their lives. My disclosure about Dad’s death here is a p urposeful way of acknowledging and understanding the power of sharing the impact of my losses with others. I have experienced the very real and unfathomable rawness of grief whilst simultaneously understanding that loss is inevitable. To paraphrase Hamlet, sons lose their fathers, it is common. Fathers also lose their sons and it hurts like hell. Bonds made are not so easily broken and my father and lost sons must somehow find a home in me. Truth fragments and reality expands to accommodate new, bittersweet experiences of pain and solace. When I arrived in England I hadn’t allowed myself to realise how sick Dad was. I was a child ... so much in denial about his condition and about my own responsibilities. Death was inconceivable and inconvenient, sabotaging my carefully arranged long-term plans, scuppering my ambitious presentation in Moscow, interrupting my new relationship with my son.

Creative practice is inviting for the control-freak because it is more tangible than the real world. For an hour or so, the environment is mine, I shape it, and therefore I shape what you see. This page has been designed by me; I’ve shaped it and decided the placement and order of the words that you now read. Frustratingly, I cannot control your interpretation and it is the recognition of this hopelessness that is liberating. Your understanding of what I feel about loss is bound up with who you are. You’re altering my grief and you haven’t even read this yet (at the time of writing), you don’t exist yet - but you float around me like a ghost. Postmodernism is, by definition (a definition that it d oesn’t have) unclear - that’s the point. Fragmented, borrowing, being incomplete, denying the possibility of truth and using that denial as a springboard to something else - the unbound, the instinctual, the begged, borrowed and stolen. I ’d like to take more ownership of my grief but I can’t grab it, it’s always someone else’s or a poor imitation - I don’t how to perform it and I don’t know how to stop needing to. I think really I’m a positivist; I like structure, organisation, systems and being systematic. This is probably reflective of a car eer that necessarily bleeds meaning, grapples with concepts of

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__________________________________________________________________ Dad had always seemed so negative about my work and his death at this time seemed like the ultimate act of control.

Later, I realised that Dad’s decline was not about ‘bad’ timing. My family needed me to see this through. I needed to see this through but it was a struggle to silence the child … ‘Why me? Why be there to witness the end? Does Dad really want this?’ Am I less of a son for considering my life before his? This is the realm of responsibility, guilt and conventional expectations.

ephemerality - trying always to catch while simultaneously expecting the fumble. The headache of my often conceptual practice makes me strive for the ‘systems’ found everywhere else. Perhaps regrettably, death has always seemed like its part of a system to me, the circle of life something very clear and sensible. When the system is upset, as it was with my brother’s death, the system is challenged and the narrative of life explodes again. I am left to take myself back, over time, to where the structures are, so that I may again feel secure, impacting and in control. I wonder how Granddad was changed by his experience of death … * The Gun

Sam Bray was a veteran of the Second World War. Like so many passionate and kind men he had lived an unremitting nightmare that deeply changed him and coloured our family life.

1 Once in a time, in a far off land We lived in a world of rock and sand Stung by the wind, scorched by the sun Our only friend was a gun.

2 We lived as beasts of burden then And toiled to obey our fellow men Till our hearts were stone and our bones were steel And only the gun was real.

3 The Gun was our God, and we it’s crew Bow’d down before its fiery spew We starved to feed its fiery breech And make the monster retch

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__________________________________________________________________ 4 Time passed and Death who paced with war Struck till the world could stand no more And men, with horror over run Turned sickened from the Gun

5 I am but young, I should be gay I should love life, song and play But I’ve left my youth in a far off land Hidden beneath the windswept sand Scorched and scarred by the sun Crushed by a worn out Gun

He was a good man, a warrior, managing appallingly complicated losses. H e lived in two worlds simultaneously, parenting us in the best way he knew whilst he relived horrors and grieved for his fallen comrades in arms.

Samuel Bray, Gunner, 51st Field Artillery Regiment, Circa 1942, unpublished. *

I am his son. He shaped me and I copied his modelling by acting out both his caring and his disruptive anger without being aware of its true significance. H is grief was vast, unbearable and largely unspoken. If only he had ... If only we had listened ... That’s not just you and me ... Pumped full of painkillers and no longer able to communicate except by touch, Dad lingered on a living ghost. After some soul searching mum decided that he would have wanted me to present my paper in Moscow after all, so I went.

His love, his wounds and his words are passing down the generations. We are listening ... I think about Granddad more now that he is dead. H is extinguished consciousness has been raised into mine. I consider him more now. I only properly realised that he was a father (and not just a grandfather) when he was dying - my own father started to talk about it in terms I could understand. That’s probably everyone … Fathers and sons - I always thought that you sort of chose the relationship. B ut, the genetic tie thrusts an instinctual responsibility into a relationship that is destined to be problematic anyway. The age gap is too big (initially) the status is unequal (mostly) and friendship is fragile (forever). It is impossible for sons and fathers to have a ‘proper’ relationship in the first 25

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__________________________________________________________________ years of the son’s life and by the end of the 25 years required to ‘fix’ it - the father will be dead, or dying. That first day was highly charged. I had just left Dad’s bedside, arrived in Moscow at midnight, my luggage lost in transit for three days, and with no change of clothes. Why was I here? On day two, with Dad on his deathbed, I lay down on a mat in a pre-conference breath workshop and practiced being more alive. Relaxed and breathing deeply I meet my Dad. I can see him. His fragile body is awkwardly caged in a vast metal bed buttressed by painfully large pillows, fighting for each rasping breath, unable to communicate. My orientation changes and I become him – his feelings are my feelings. Even as I experience his painful breathing, fused with him I understand there is so much more. I feel his life’s final struggle torn between the uncertainties of life and death. I lend him comfort with my presence and a trickle of warm recognition comes back. I am understood. Tears of joy stream down my face. A softly glowing globe appears and as I willingly take it, I feel myself lighting up with relief and joy. Dad and I have been together - we are together! We shared an

But we try, and we must. That responsibility, that bond, is one of the strongest we will ever have. The past is a f oreign country. W e shouldn’t associate memory with absolute truth … just a kind of truth, a personal truth at most. Everything I remember about Granddad is true. Every trip to the seaside, every walk round the lanes, every time he held me as a baby, every photograph that was taken before I was born. Grief allows me to be provocative. You can ‘find’ your ‘Dads’ where you please … Hamlet sits in a s pecial place for me because of my father. There is something seductive in seeing obsession from a distance. My father loves this play and so I have tried to. I’m not especially interested in seeing the play performed. But, I enjoy the language, I enjoy catching the phrases that are now common parlance the idea that contemporary vernacular uttered without a second thought, is a quotation - that ghosts of a literary text slide from mouths without a thought for the author or aura of its source. I see death in this way. For all that’s lost, as much remains.

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__________________________________________________________________ extraordinary moment and he gave me a g reat treasure, something wonderful and inexplicable. Now I know that he is free in a way that I can only just conceive and I know with absolute certainty that he is alright - that we are alright! I had been ‘breathing’ for over two hours but had no notion of the time. When I looked at my phone I saw that my sister had text me to say that Dad had died. Okay, this is not Hamlet ... but my father’s ghost, for want of a better word, sought me out to forgive us, reconcile us, and redeem us. You left me Nothing ... We never really had that conversation did we? It’s hard to talk, to be truthful when truth hurts others. People you love. People who are absent or lost. It’s fragile enough as it is without creating more misunderstanding, more loss.

We embody information as we spend our lives being saturated by it. Of course we can intentionally learn things, but we also learn and are influenced despite ourselves. You can’t take away what you’ve seen or experienced and there is the legacy. ‘ Granddadness’ is in me (regardless of fantastical memories) and I can/need do nothing about it. Even if that’s not ‘true’, it is true, even if I wasn’t there, I was. These are things I re member, whether I remember them or not.

You left me What does that mean? I know We’re not that dramatic. considering …

Funny

I have no doubt that your absence has been a big part of the formation of my identity. Any negativity I associate with that becomes as much about me as it does about you. I was upset … but people get upset, it’s over now.

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__________________________________________________________________ I was lost

Of course …

We’re about strength, solving problems, not panicking. We avoid upsetting people. We don’t go on about it though do we? You did leave me though, didn’t you? My happiness is bound up with the happiness of those around me. I’m brightened by seeing joy in those I care about. I can’t claim ownership of happiness myself, or ownership of sadness, actually. I don’t cry and I didn’t cry for Granddad until the memorial service (where the conditions were right).

Rationalisation to avoid feeling? You sound like your Granddad

Writing these words makes me feel like the idea of terrible, like they might make someone else sad. Am I grieving for Granddad - I don’t know, depends on what terms, whose terms? Part of me, as I watched him, helpless on his hospital bed, had realised the inevitable. No one was accountable, no one did anything wrong, no one was to blame. Protest to the fact of death (in this instance) is unfounded, unreasonable, and can make the situation worse. Particular kinds of feeling. Is all feeling worth feeling?

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__________________________________________________________________ Don’t judge me as you piece together the aspects of this text that point to a personality type or behavioural pattern. I know you will. B ut be conscious of your tarring of me, you own the brush and I never came near it.

At the close of his tragedy Hamlet implores his friend to stay alive to tell his story … This was my story. It will become our story, my son’s and my Dad’s. It belongs to us all. In this witnessing, our losses become transformed through our lives. ‘Our’ story is everyone’s. It is the collective telling and reremembering of what we most value.

“EVERTHING IS INTERESTING” “NOT EVERYTHING IS INTERESTING. THAT DEVALUES ‘INTERESTING’, BUT SOME THINGS ARE INTERESTING AND THOSE THINGS SHOULD BE NURTURED AND GIVEN TIME, SPACE AND RECOGNITION.”

When we read a n ovel we place others and ourselves into the narrative. W e complete the detail of every place and person by projecting our personally experienced DNA and filling the 99.99% that the story doesn’t tell us. Remember this, as you construct our identities. I’m happy to become your simulacrum, but over time the simulacrum will become less yours and will grow in distance from me - you’ll forget and I’ll never know. I tell you because it’s interesting isn’t it? And that’s enough. That’s enough to legitimise anything. I once met an artist who was wearing a small white badge with black writing on it that read … I couldn’t disagree more. I told the artist that the badge should read …

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__________________________________________________________________ The artist claimed the badge was too small for that. I guess loss and trauma are ongoing - no time limit, no sell by date. Mum still smells his presence. I dream him.

How I grieve is mediated. How I buried my Dad was regulated. Dad would have preferred a bag or a cardboard coffin …

If doing it ‘right’ is an expression of Dad’s worth … then fine.

Grandma still talks to the urn, finding that Granddad in his physical form (however changed) is still the place to go to communicate with him.

“Spare any expense!” We’ll take our identities from the multiple impositions thrust upon us. Fine.

He is a part of me now …

I can/can’t sense him. (delete as applicable) A part of us.

Bibliography Bray, P., ‘A Broader Framework for Exploring the Influence of Spiritual Experience in the Wake of Stressful Life Events: Examining Connections between Posttraumatic Growth and Psycho-Spiritual Transformation’. Mental Health, Religion and Culture. Vol. 13, 2010, pp. 293-308. Calhoun, L. and Tedeschi R., Facilitating Posttraumatic Growth: A Clinician’s Guide. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, London, 1999. Chang, H., Autoethnography as Method. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, 2008. Heddon, D., Autobiography and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007.

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__________________________________________________________________ Herman, J.L., Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, New York, 1992. Janoff-Bulman, R., Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma. Free Press, New York, 1992. Klass, D., Silverman, P.R. and Nickman, S.L., Continuing Bonds. Taylor Francis, Washington, 1996. Smith, S. & Watson J., Interfaces: Women, Autobiography, Image, Performance. The University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 2002. Tedeschi, R. and Calhoun L., Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering. Sage Publications, London, 1995. Walsh, F., Male Trouble: Masculinity and the Performance of Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2011. Worden, J.W., Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. Springer Publishing, New York, 2009. Peter Bray is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hawke’s Bay, NZ. His current research and writing reflect a growing interest in making and exploring connections between loss, grief and the impact of spiritual dimensions of experience upon post-traumatic growth, and ‘self’ consciousness in counselling practice. Oliver Bray is a Senior Lecturer in Performance Practice at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, where he is also a University Teacher Fellow. He is the Artistic Director of Until Thursday Theatre Company and his research interests include performance pedagogy, contemporary theatre making and self-consciousness and grief in performance practice. www.oliverbray.com

Trauma and Identity in Gaza: Shooting a Cast Lead Elephant Jeanne E. Clark Abstract Palestinians and Jewish Israelis have long memories of diaspora and war intensified. For both groups those memories are as essential to the shaping of their national identities as the land they both claim. This chapter is a study of the relation between trauma, memory and identity as it is portrayed in two artefacts about Operation Cast Lead, the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza. Arce’s documentary, To Shoot An Elephant, recalls Orwell’s essay witnessing colonial violence in Asia; the documentary portrays the war through the eyes of activists embedded with Palestinian ambulance drivers. The film underscores the link to past violence in the accounts of the current victims. In the second artefact, testimonies recorded by Breaking the Silence, soldiers in Cast Lead recount conditions in which the Israeli tradition of ‘purity of arms’ was no longer clear. Their testimonies portray them as simultaneously victimizers of the people they were ordered to attack and victims of the army that required their complicity and expected their silence. This chapter examines the interconnected trauma of the conflicted parties, as past violence evokes value-laden narratives that shape the understanding of and response to the current conflict. Traumatized identity potentially imprisons the future of its victims. Key Words: Gaza, Cast Lead, trauma, memory, identity, Israel, Palestinians. ***** There was a wry joke among Palestinians in 1993: offered the Gaza Strip as a basis of their national state, they would ask ‘what will you pay us to take it?’ Gaza was a source of trouble: too many people, too little water, too little opportunity. It was a n ightmare for whoever governed it. After decades as a cr owded refugee camp, Gaza was transformed into a cage when Israel exerted control of all legal access to the strip after Hamas came to power. Gideon Levy, a co lumnist for the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, described it as ‘the largest prison on earth, a gruesome experiment performed on human beings.’ 1 In December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a major air and ground incursion into the besieged strip. By its end there were thirteen Israeli dead, over thirteen hundred Palestinian dead (mostly non-combatants), and thousands of homeless Gazans, The conflict ended with war crime charges. This chapter explores varied aspects of trauma in the context of that war. It focuses on two quite different texts. To Shoot an Elephant is a documentary film by Alberto Arce and Muhammed Rujailah. 2 It looks at the war through the eyes of international activists in Gaza to serve as witnesses of a war, the ambulance drivers

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__________________________________________________________________ with whom they were embedded and their Palestinian fixer. The title is an obvious reference to Orwell’s essay, Shooting an Elephant. 3 The organized violence Orwell participated in became for him a d emoralizing force that dehumanized both colonized and colonizer. The film focuses on the trauma of the colonized with the violent present as a continuation of the traumatic past. The second text provides voices of traumatized colonizers - Israeli soldiers who reported their experiences in Cast Lead to a g roup of Israeli veterans known as Breaking the Silence. 4 Their testimony presents the soldiers as Orwell is portrayed in Shooting an Elephant, corrupted and tormented by the violence and conditions of the colonialism they enforce. This chapter considers three ideas. First is the role of traumatic history in the narratives of the Cast Lead participants. Second is the loss of a valued identity as an additional stressor for the soldiers. Third is the sense of helplessness felt by some members of both groups - a felt inability to communicate their concerns to those who might correct the problem. This constitutes a literal and figurative silencing of those who would object to the colonial structure. 1. Revisiting a Traumatic History The event of Operation Cast Lead is experienced within a cultural context, and the cultural identities of the participants are based on selected, but sometimes conflicting aspects of that context. Trauma narratives - the Holocaust and the Nakba - are central to the identity of Israeli and Palestinian people. Writing of the Holocaust as ‘a narrative vacuum’ that lacked precedent and so was difficult for those experiencing it ‘to remember or represent,’ Van Alphen notes that: ‘Events always have a prehistory, and they are themselves the prehistory of events.’ 5 The Holocaust serves as that overriding prehistory event within Israeli cultural identity - foundational narrative that necessitates the provision of a secure home for the survivors. This mandates a strong military to insure the founding trauma will not occur again. Every threat to the state and security evokes the old trauma and so, as Wasserman notes, self-preservation is a symptom of the national trauma and the ‘trauma of the Holocaust past is redeemed through the fight for statehood.’ 6 When rockets are fired from Gaza into bordering Israeli communities those rockets exacerbate the traumatized security need. Within the narrative of Holocaust trauma and Israeli collective identity, the rockets must be stopped to prevent another set of Jewish victims. In the context of the Holocaust narrative, it does not matter if the rockets are rarely effective; that they are ever effective is a denial of security that evokes the sense of trauma. A writer for the Neshamah centre opens his web entry on Cast Lead with an image of an Israeli child injured in a rocket attack on Sderot:

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__________________________________________________________________ … CNN starts their report … with a photo of an injured Palestinian child. … But the Palestinian child would not have been injured if Hamas had not first launched attacks ... 7 In the context of the trauma culture, of an identity rooted in defending the state against the repetition of the Holocaust, the events of the rockets are necessarily a serious threat warranting a massive response. The narration is Israeli victimage. Alexander expresses the questions of narration in creating the trauma culture: What were the evil and traumatizing actions in question? Who was responsible? Who were the victims? ... What can be done by way of remediation or prevention? 8 The evil in this trauma narrative is the threat to life and security posed by Hamas violence: the Gazans are responsible and Israelis are the victims. B y the narrative, war is an appropriate response. This coincides with what Snyder, in a U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute publication, terms the ‘strategic narrative’ 9 - the story the military wants told. It is a culturally appropriate story, a b elievable narrative that meshes with national values. It justifies the military action thus enabling them to win the information and ground wars. The central trauma narrative of Palestinian identity is the Nakba. The formation of the Israeli state that offers security to the uprooted victims of the Holocaust produces the trauma of violent dispossession and occupation for the Palestinians. In 2005, Al-Ahram Weekly concludes that ‘the trauma of al-Nakba … is imprinted on the psyche of every Palestinian, on those that witnessed it as well as those that did not.’ 10 In Arce’s film, the narrative of the Nakba recurs. The essential trauma of Palestinian identity that still shapes their interaction with Israelis is evoked repeatedly. A street mural of the ‘Nakba at 60: is seen several times: once as a commenting background to families who pass in front of it as they walk to escape the oncoming Israeli army. Wasserman terms the Nakba a trauma of ‘itinerancy’ or ‘being uprooted.’ Gaza, particularly, ‘preserved its refugee status and its peoples’ permanent sense of restlessness.’ 11 Cast Lead renews the trauma of the Nakba as the refugees are forced to flee again, this time fleeing within an enclosure. The trauma is intensified by its repetition, by its context of perilous confinement and by the increased violence of the experience. Having just learned of a three-year-old boy killed in one neighbourhood, the filmmakers underscore the trauma with one refugee’s statement:

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__________________________________________________________________ This Nakba is much harder than the first one. In the first Nakba they were not destroying the people this way. Now shells are falling on people’s heads. 12 The trauma induced inability ‘to envision a future’ 13 described by Brisson is evidenced in the Palestinian witnesses of Cast Lead in the film. One refugee comments, ‘Only Allah can protect us … We are waiting for death.’ 14 2. Losing a Valued Identity At the founding of the state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion presented a code of conduct to guide the state in military matters - tohar ha-neshek or purity of arms. The doctrine requires a ‘proportional response to violence and humane behaviour in combat.’ 15 Concern for civilian rights and safety are central to the code. The soldier testimony recorded by Breaking the Silence describes action in direct conflict with that code. The long-treasured identity of the Israeli army as a force controlled by the practiced of purity of arms, the belief that non-combatants must be protected and war must be conducted in a just manner, was tarnished in Cast Lead. Testimony references white phosphorus used in densely occupied neighbourhoods, with one soldier exclaiming, ‘it was cool,’ and wondering why it was included in their ammunition if they were not supposed to use it. 16 Others describe civilians routinely used as human shields during neighbourhood clean-up operations, 17 homes destroyed for no good reason, 18 homes defiled by excrement and obscene graffiti by occupying soldiers, 19 looting ignored by superior officers 20 and innocents killed because of the loose rules of engagement. 21 They report commander assertions that there are no innocents, no civilians in this urban war in Gaza. 22 Some soldiers exhibit discomfort with the events. Witnesses are disturbed by the way their fellows had dehumanized the people they were attacking. 23 One is distressed at an officer’s comment that ‘we have an Arabic speaking grenade launcher.’ 24 The identity of the Israeli army as a pure force protecting a secular, democratic state is seen to shift in Cast Lead. One officer, explaining how the soldiers were to act in combat, comments in a t one the reporting soldier sees as sarcastic, ‘Unfortunately we’re a democracy.’ 25 Other soldiers report the military rabbis who presented the war in Crusader terms describing the Palestinians as the Philistines or the Amalekites, enemies from antiquity who were to be wiped out. The rabbis tell them ‘there is no accounting for sins in this case…whatever we do is fine.’ 26 The cherished identity of purity of arms is abandoned in Gaza.

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. Silenced Both Israeli and Palestinian victims of Cast Lead trauma expressed difficulty finding effective actors who are willing to acknowledge their sources of trauma while they are experiencing them. Alexander’s discussion of the social construction of moral universals relating to traumatic events helps explain why this matters. 27 Silencing the objectors devalues and depersonalizes the victims; implicitly what they see or say is unimportant. The silencing also makes it more difficult to recognize the source of guilt, the evil, in the trauma situation. Silencing covers over the social wound leaving the abscess to the social condition below the smothering bandage. Israeli soldiers are clearly silenced during the trauma of Cast Lead by their inability or unwillingness to get their superiors to acknowledge the problem with the loose rules of engagement. One soldier who raises the matter of the excessive brutality of the war with his battalion commander is told, ‘Don’t let morality become an issue. That will come up later.’ The battalion commander admonishes, ‘Leave the nightmares and horrors that will come up for later, now just shoot.’ 28 Another soldier is disturbed by his company commander’s enthusiastic response to the killing of an unarmed man who was wandering on the road outside their house post at night: When we said he knew the guy had nothing on him and only holding a torch, he said ‘That doesn’t matter.’ … A 50-60 year old man lying on the road. I felt uneasy about the whole thing, but knew that it wouldn’t do any good to bring it up right there and confront the company commander in the middle of Gaza. … finally the guys felt that even if they would take this up with higher echelons, it would be ineffective. 29 After the war, the attempts at silencing continue as the IDF contends: ‘if there were any moral problems with the war at all, they were on the level of the ‘delinquent soldier.’’ Breaking the Silence is attacked for publishing the testimony that demonstrates the guilt and responsibility were systemic issues rather than a limited matter of ‘rotten apple’ soldiers. 30 The most poignant silencing of the Palestinians is presented just after a hospital emergency room sequence. When three young children are struck by missile fire while playing in Gaza, we see their death. The families rush the dying children to the hospital and doctors race to care for them, but soon they are carrying the shrouded bodies to storage. The images are graphic and powerful. A young photographer talks with an unknown news agency outside of Gaza and tells the story of the child victims. The agency wants pictures of the war, but not these pictures; they are deemed too strong. The journalistic ethic censoring disturbing images is in place. Trauma experienced by victims of the war is silenced for those

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__________________________________________________________________ outside the violence. The photographer is left mouthing halting statements that he will ‘make up’ the dead. 31 4. Conclusion Palestinians and Jewish Israelis have long cultural memories of diaspora, holocaust and war intensified by incidents of terrorism. For both groups, those memories are as essential to the shaping of their national identities as the land they both claim. Equally central is the role of victim at the hands of the other as victimizer. In the interconnected trauma of the conflicted parties, past violence evokes value-laden narratives that shape the understanding of and response to current conflict. Traumatized identity potentially imprisons the future of its victims. As Wasserman contends: ‘Rather than unfolding and progressing into the future, the present is saturated with the past; it is ruined with it.’

Notes 1

G. Levy, The Punishment of Gaza, Verso, London, 2010, p. viii. A. Arce and M. Rujailah, To Shoot an Elephant, Eguzki Bideoak, 2009. 3 G. Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant’, New Writing, First Series, No. 2, 1936. 4 Breaking the Silence: Soldiers’ Testimonies from Operation Cast Lead, Gaza 2009, Breaking the Silence, updated 3.17.2011, viewed on 15 J anuary 2011, http://www.shovrimshtika.org/publications_e.asp. 5 E. Van Alphen, ‘Symptoms of Discursivity: Experience, Memory, and Trauma’, Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, M. Bal, J. Crewe and L. Spitzer (eds), Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999, p. 34. 6 T. Wasserman, ‘Intersecting Traumas: The Holocaust, the Palestinian Occupation and the Work of Israeli Journalist Amira Hass’, Culture, Trauma and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on War, N. Carpentier (ed), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, 2007, p. 238. 7 B. Leff, Operation Cast Lead, Neshamah Center, updated 5 April 2011, viewed on 1 March 2011, http://www.neshamah.net/2008/12/operation-cast.html. 8 J. Alexander, ‘On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The Holocaust from War Crime to Trauma Drama’, Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, J. Alexander et al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004, p. 203. 9 M. Snyder, ‘Information Strategies Against a Hybrid Threat: What the Recent Experience of Israel Versus Hezbollah/Hamas Tell the US Army’, Back to Basics: A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, S. Farquhar (ed), Combat Studies Institute Press, 2009, p. 127. 10 Quoted in E. Webman, ‘The Evolution of a Founding Myth: The Nakba and Its Fluctuating Meaning’, Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity, M. Litvak (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, p. 41. 2

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Wasserman, op. cit., p. 157. Arce and Rujailah, op. cit. 13 S. Brison, ‘Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self,’ Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, M. Bal, J. Crewe and L. Spitzer (eds), Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999, p. 44. 14 Arce and Rujailah, op.cit. 15 E. Dorff and D. Ruttenberg (eds), Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 2010, p. 50. 16 Breaking the Silence, op. cit., p. 23. 17 Ibid., p. 107. 18 Ibid., pp. 57, 66-67, 69, 73. 19 Ibid., pp. 55, 80, 84, 87, 100. 20 Ibid., p. 81. 21 Ibid., pp. 27, 105-106. 22 Ibid., pp.20, 27. 23 Ibid., pp. 16, 29-30. 24 Ibid., p. 46. 25 Ibid., p. 56. 26 Ibid., p. 39-44. 27 Alexander, op. cit. 28 Breaking the Silence, op. cit., p. 28. 29 Ibid., p. 39. 30 Ibid., p. 5. 31 Arce and Rujailah, op. cit. 12

Bibliography Alexander, J., ‘On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The Holocaust from War Crime to Trauma Drama’. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. J. Alexander et al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004. Arce, A. and Rujailah, M., To Shoot an Elephant. Eguzki Bideoak, 2009. Breaking the Silence: Soldiers’ Testimonies from Operation Cast Lead, Gaza 2009. Breaking the Silence. Updated 3.17.2011. Viewed on 15 J anuary 2011. http://www.shovrimshtika.org/publications_e.asp. Brison, S., ‘Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self’. Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. Bal, M., Crewe, J. and Spitzer, L. (eds), Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999.

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__________________________________________________________________ Dorff, E. and Ruttenberg, D. (eds), Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security. Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 2010. Leff, B., Operation Cast Lead. Neshamah Center. Updated 5 April 2011. Viewed on 1 March 2011. http://www.neshamah.net/2008/12/operation-cast.html. Levy, G., The Punishment of Gaza. Verso, London, 2010. Orwell, G., ‘Shooting an Elephant’. New Writing. First Series, No. 2, 1936. Snyder, M., ‘Information Strategies Against a Hybrid Threat: What the Recent Experience of Israel Versus Hezbollah/Hamas Tell the US Army’. Back to Basics: A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. Farquhar, S. (ed), Combat Studies Institute Press, 2009. Van Alphen, E., ‘Symptoms of Discursivity: Experience, Memory, and Trauma’. Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. Bal, M., Crewe, J. and Spitzer, L. (eds), Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999. Wasserman, T., ‘Intersecting Traumas: The Holocaust, the Palestinian Occupation, and the Work of Israeli Journalist Amira Hass’. Culture, Trauma, and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on War. Carpentier, N. (ed), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, 2007. Webman, E., ‘The Evolution of a Founding Myth: The Nakba and Its Fluctuating Meaning’. Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity. Litvak, M. (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009. Jeanne E. Clark is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon, U.S.A.

Looking at the Iraq War with ‘Eyes Wide Open’: Trauma, Memory and Ethics Catherine Ann Collins Abstract This chapter employs a cas e study of ‘Eyes Wide Open’ - US community memorial developed by the American Friends Service Organization. The traveling exhibition promotes a discourse of trauma - discursive space and language - that evokes a collective response to personal and cultural costs of the Iraq War. ’Eyes Wide Open’ engages the viewer in memory work by highlighting the traumatized body that is represented both metonymically and narratively: US military and Iraqi civilian deaths are represented by hundreds of military boots and well-worn shoes corresponding to the age of the civilian victim, while at the same time large posters featuring a photograph and biography of civilians killed in the war and videotaped messages from military families personalize the trauma of this war. The resulting painful memories evoked may, in LaCapra’s terms, become necessary to avoid covering the wounds that traumatized individuals and nations often employ in political discussions about war. But an exploration of how the memorial appropriates the trauma of those fighting and living in war-torn Iraq, albeit for a good cause - the cessation of a war - raises the broader question about the relationship between trauma discourse and ethics. The exhibition also challenges old associations and justificatory memories. Visual arguments connect American involvement in Iraq with civilian and military trauma, and verbal arguments presented in the memorial dissociate justificatory actions from 9/11. ‘Eyes Wide Open’ offers a significant stepping off point for a discussion of trauma, memory and cultural discourse about the war in Iraq. Key Words: Iraq War, trauma, memory, memorial, ‘Eyes Wide Open’, metonymy. ***** 1. Introduction In 2004 The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) created a memorial to those who died in the Iraq war, ‘Eyes Wide Open’. The memorial reflects the Quaker commitment to pacifism as it seeks to both memorialize those who have lost their lives in the war and to argue for the cessation of American military intervention in Iraq. The argument begins with the claim that there is an intolerably high human cost to the war that should merit the withdrawal of American troops. To this end, visual and verbal appeals represent, both metonymically and narratively, the traumatized body of war’s victims. This chapter focuses on the metonymic representation evoking the trauma and the human cost of war through the visual symbols of combat boots and civilian shoes.

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__________________________________________________________________ Metonymy entails a sense of reduction, from something that is complex to something more concrete. While there is significant research on linguistic uses of metonymy, less attention has been paid to the visual metonym, which this chapter argues performs the same functions as linguistic metonyms. How do we measure the loss of a life, whether soldier or civilian, in terms that make that potential life real to someone else? The worn shoe or boot of the dead is concrete and highly personal, unlike a statistical fact. This reduction is a form of representation that links the object with the lost potential of the individual and hence evokes the response of loss. 1 The metonym can only be partial, a r epresentation, but I will argue metonyms can move the visitor toward a more authentic working through of the Iraq War trauma I pursue this argument by examining how this memorial follows the conventions of war memorials in creating a s pace and discourse for addressing trauma, and then looking at how the memorial’s visual metonyms engage the visitor in directed memory work. ‘Eyes Wide Open’ offers a significant stepping off point for a discussion of trauma, memory and cultural discourse about the war in Iraq. 2. The Artefact First displayed in Chicago, and now a traveling exhibit, ‘Eyes Wide Open’: The Human Cost of War in Iraq employs the visual symbols of combat boots and civilian shoes to personalize the human cost of the war. In addition to poster boards and interviews with military families, the exhibit also contains fact boards about the economic cost of the war. Additionally, the exhibit includes a wall of flags with names and brief messages to those who have died, reminiscent of the wall of names so common to war memorials (e.g. the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War memorials in Washington DC). The AFSC staffs the memorial and provides literature, CDs and memorabilia that advocate for peace. Videotapes of military families traumatized by the death of a relative and questioning the appropriateness of the war are broadcast on site and available for purchase. As visitors to the memorial enter the space they follow or step over rows of worn military boots or civilian shoes. Once inside, there is no single path for traversing the exhibit as all of the objects are easily reached for casual or intense surveillance; the visitor must choose how to engage in the memorial. Volunteers are available to answer questions, provide materials or direct visitors to particular areas of the exhibit. The boots and shoes represent individuals who have been killed in the war one pair of boots for every American soldier killed and one pair of shoes for about every 7 t o 10 c ivilians who have died. When the memorial was first shown, 500 pairs of boots were lined up to represent the total US casualties in 2004. When that number rose to 3 500 in 2007 the exhibit had to be broken up into smaller units. Individual states now display only the number of pairs of boots of their soldiers lost in the war alongside a representative collection of shoes symbolizing Iraqi

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__________________________________________________________________ civilians killed. Boots and shoes are labelled with the name and age of the soldier or civilian they represent. As of December 2010 4 433 US soldiers died in the Iraq War and over 100 000 civilians had been killed. Michael McConnell, the creator of the exhibit, explains its purpose: People say the boots and the wall are powerful and haunting . . . They look at the tags and say ‘They’re all so young,’ or ‘I didn’t realize there were so many.’ There’s a quote [from Josef Stalin]: ‘One death is a tragedy, a t housand deaths is a statistic.’ Our purpose is to keep a sense of tragedy. 2 What is rhetorically interesting about ‘Eyes Wide Open’ is the decision to find a visual symbol to keep the deaths personal rather than a mere statistic for the American public. The boots and shoes represent a conscious decision on AFSC’s part to counter official efforts to control the American public’s response to the war by denying visualizations of the death toll, e.g. not showing flag draped coffins that would surely emphasize the human cost of war or the US’s decision not to report Iraqi casualties. The AFSC exhibit visualizes the very evidence that US officials attempted to manage. McConnell notes: ‘We’ve felt all along the human cost of the war has been hidden from the American public.’ 3 Everything about the memorial personalizes the death statistics - from photos to stories to mementos, real people focus the memorial experience. Management of visual messages is understandable: visual appeals are persuasive. News stories without dramatic pictures are slower to appear, receive less space or prominence and fade more quickly than stories with dramatic visual representation; dramatic pictures engage an audience and endure over time (the Tiananmen Square tank, the napalm girl, the plane crashing into the Twin Towers). These images, especially those that have become iconic, influence by ‘representing ideology, communicating social knowledge, shaping collective memory, modelling citizenship, and providing natural resources for communicative action.’ 4 Visual images engage an audience in the arguments being made and increase the chance that these will be retained. These same functions adhere in visual elements of memorials where they symbolize values, evoke cultural narratives and shape the creation of collective memory. The boots and shoes of the ‘Eyes Wide Open’ memorial are powerful visual metonyms representing the human cost of war - too many military and civilian lives lost. 3. Memorials and Trauma ‘Eyes Wide Open’ is a form of war memorial. As such, it is designed (as have war memorials since their origin in the classical era of Greece) as a s pace for mourning those who have died and for finding relief from the trauma of war. They offer solidarity, expressions of victory, space for grieving and invite a community

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__________________________________________________________________ of visitors to remember in particular ways. Both religious and secular, Jay Winter explains that memorials are ‘sites of symbolic exchange, where the living admit a degree of indebtedness to their fallen which can never be fully discharged,’ 5 at the same time they are highly personal - constructed to help individuals ‘accept the brutal facts of death in war.’ 6 War memorials take many forms, from monuments to architecture, from art to rituals. Some are officially sanctioned and permanent, others are vernacular and temporary. Never neutral, war memorials help us negotiate collective memory, since they ‘endure as places and rituals, communities are consciously made to confront wars that are a part of their history.’ 7 When the war is on-going, as in Iraq, memorials to the dead may also challenge the appropriateness of continuing the war by asking what cost in human life is too high. Marita Sturken has argued that since the 1980s, the United States embraced remembering, and in doing so erected numerous memorials. ‘The memorial culture of the United States has been largely experienced as a therapeutic culture, in which the particular citizens, primarily veterans and their families, have been seen as coming to terms with the past and making peace with difficult memories.’ 8 The memorials become sites for working through trauma. Traumatic events for individuals elicit a haunting, uncontrolled, unpredictable response. Cathy Caruth explains: ‘the event is not assimilated or experienced fully at the time, but only belatedly, in its repeated possession of the one who experiences it.’ 9 The trauma victim feels that memory controls him or her. While seemingly unspeakable, traumatic events, nonetheless, demand a rhetorical response. In LaCapra’s terms, a rhetorical response that helps one work through rather than just act out the trauma is what is needed: acting out occurs when ‘one is haunted or possessed by the past and performatively caught up in the compulsion repetition of traumatic scenes.’ 10 Working through comes when one is able to respond to the trauma, if not in control, at least out of a sense of agency, no matter how slight. For example, Vietnam War Veterans argued that until one’s service was recognized and valorised through The Wall in Washington D.C. their personal (and national) healing could not occur. Memorials are a way of attempting closure to a traumatic memory, of bridging the haunting past of loss and the imagined future and of giving space for the possibility of working through the traumatic event. Scholarship has linked war trauma with temporary memorials created by family and friends, who feel compelled to establish a p lace and way to remember those who have died. Arredondo, for example, created a spontaneous memorial to honour his son killed in Iraq: ‘Carlos used the process of creating, assembling, and displaying the memorial to help him deal with the overwhelming feelings of loss and despair.’ 11 The trauma of direct experience with a ca tastrophic event, like Carlos’s, can be extended to collective trauma resulting from national events in which the traumatic response extends to individuals who have not directly

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__________________________________________________________________ experienced it or even personally known someone who died (consider the American public’s response to 9/11). The same haunting exists as well as a need to relieve that experience - anything to gain a sense of control. MacLeish argues that memorials ‘constitute an effort to come to terms with the dead, with the chaos and disaster of history, against the impulse to keep looking forward, to be swept along by progress, and so to forget.’ 12 Working through an experience allows the possibility of recuperating from trauma. Memorials, spontaneous or official, offer a place for dealing with the trauma, a way to give oneself a sense of control. 4. The Use of Metonymic Representation in ‘Eyes Wide Open’ ‘Eyes Wide Open’ provides a space for working through the human cost of the Iraq War. It does so most noticeably through visual metonyms - shoes and boots that offer perspective by reducing the domain - e.g., the boots stand in substitution for the larger soldier who has died - and through expansion of the domain - from the death of soldiers or civilians to the unacceptably high human cost of war. 13 As viewers, we understand the substitution precisely because we apprehend the specific perspective: because of the George W. Bush administration’s reluctance to allow the media access to photo opportunities of returning caskets, boots and shoes become a substitute that cannot be managed by the Administration; they are in Forceville’s terms metonyms ‘that can be identified sui generis.’ 14 In ‘Eyes Wide Open’, the boots and shoes are visual metonyms that can be identified without explanation, yet they are personalized with tags identifying the name and age of the soldier or civilian embodied by the boots/shoes. Words and objects ‘interanimate’ one another in the verbal tagging and metonymic representation in the memorial. 15 Further individuation occurs when offerings are tucked into the shoes by visitors to the memorial - letters from friends or family, a teddy bear or photograph. It is similarly important that the boots and shoes are worn, for as such they reflect a life lived, the absence of a real person. This is more powerful symbolically, MacLeish argues, than the less personalized crosses or flags for each dead soldier: ‘The corporeal absence evoked by the boots suggests a haunting incompleteness, though - the person who once occupied them is simply gone.’ 16 The boots/shoes can represent the person’s death without offering details, while still arguing forcefully that the cost of war is the death of real people, In effect, the metonymic representation challenges politicized labels - ‘enemies’, ‘terrorists’ or even ‘soldiers’ or ‘civilians’ - that de-intensify the loss, and in their place privilege a re-personalization of each life lost. James Young, writing about Holocaust memorials, reminds us that in ‘bringing different formal qualities to bear on memory, every ‘memorial text’ generates a different meaning in memory.’ 17 Regardless of form, memorial sites, temporary or permanent, are performative: who visits and how they interact with and within the site changes the creation of memory for that individual and other visitors to the

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__________________________________________________________________ site. Memory, Young concluded, is never ‘monolithic,’ never ‘stands still’ and is always subject to contestation. 18 Thus more broadly the single name, boot or shoe calls forth the much larger traumatic loss from the war in Iraq. The circle of pain is problematic when one of the justifications America makes for military intervention is to help civilians innocently caught up in the evil of a corrupt leader or faction. The viewers move from iconic boots and the immediate patriotic response of support for the troops to the loss of civilians (at least ten times greater than the loss of soldiers) and that justification for supporting the war is contested. ‘Eyes Wide Open’ challenges the official descriptions of war and the patriotic commemoration that bestows honour on those who die in service to their country. The AFSC memorial does not dishonour the fallen soldier, but it also does not allow their death to be glossed over in patriotic proclamations of duty and courage that de facto justify the war. The exhibit tries to force the viewer to confront real loss as a cost of war. The rows of footwear, the large photographs of civilians who have died, the flags with handwritten messages to loved ones all make the death personal, not just an unfortunate by-product of war. In visiting war memorials, Americans feel ‘authentically close to an event’ 19 as well as encouraged to take a subject position of innocence and a naïve citizenship based on victimage rather than national aggression. It is this kind of positioning that the AFSC’s ‘Eyes Wide Open’ exhibit challenges. The boots alone, as symbolic of the human cost of war might well reinforce this position. But the boots cannot be seen or inspected without encountering the civilian shoes, booties and flip flops representing innocent Iraqi lives lost. The neat division of the world into good and evil, terrorist and innocent American victim is visually challenged. 5. Conclusion Metonymic representation through the boots and shoes individuates the human cost of war. The metonymic evocation in Eyes Wide Open is far more traumatic than the abstract gains and losses. Stewart explains that metonyms are powerful precisely because they focus on perception - what something is, rather than how meaning is to be sorted out. 20 Whether we are winning or losing the war, whether the war is just or necessary are not the questions raised by the metonym. Instead, the focus is on, in Sturken’s terms, a ‘widening circle of pain’ 21 emanating from the boots/shoes as we imagine family and friends grieving because of the war. ‘Eyes Wide Open’ promotes a discourse of trauma - a discursive space and language - that evokes a collective response to the personal and cultural cost of the Iraq War.

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Notes 1

K. Burke, A Grammar of Motives, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969, p. 507. 2 D. Hanley, ‘Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War in Iraq’, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July-August 2004, p. 14. 3 Ibid. 4 R. Hariman and J.L. Lucaites, No Caption Needed, Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 9. 5 J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, p. 94. 6 Ibid. 7 J. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape, Praeger, New York, 1988, p. 11. 8 M. Sturkin, Tourists of History, Durham, NC Duke University Press, 2007, p. 14. 9 C. Caruth, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995, pp. 4-5. 10 D. LaCapra, op. cit., p. 21. 11 L. Pershing and N. Bellinger, ‘From Sorrow to Activisim’, Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 123, No. 488, Spring 2010, p. 179. 12 K. MacLeish, ‘The Tense Present History of the Second Gulf War: Revelation and Repression in Memorialization’, Text, Practice, Performance, Vol. 6, 2005, p. 71. 13 C. Forceville, ‘Metonymy in Visual and Audiovisual Discourse,’ The World Told and the World Shown, E. Ventola (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, p. 58. 14 Ibid., p. 62. 15 I.A. Richards, The Philosophy of Literary Form, Oxford University Press, New York, 1965, p. 47. 16 K. MacLeish, op. cit., p. 77. 17 J.E. Young, The Texture of Memory, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993, p. viii. 18 Ibid., p. x. 19 M. Sturkin, op. cit., p. 12. 20 J. Stewart, ‘Objects in Space and Time: Metonymy in Durrell’s Island Books’, Style, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2000, p. 88. 21 M. Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, p. 58.

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Bibliography Burke, K., A Grammar of Motives. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969. Caruth, C., Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995. Forceville, C., ‘Metonymy in Visual and Audiovisual Discourse’. The World Told and the World Shown. Ventola, E. (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009. Hanley, D., ‘Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War in Iraq’. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. July-August 2004, pp. 14-16. Hariman, R. and Lucaites, J.L., No Caption Needed. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2007. LaCapra, D., Writing History, Writing Trauma. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001. MacLeish, K., ‘The Tense Present History of the Second Gulf War: Revelation and Repression in Memorialization’. Text, Practice, Performance. Vol. 6, 2005, pp. 6984. Mayo, J., War Memorials as Political Landscape. Praeger, New York, 1988. Pershing, L. and Bellinger, N., ‘From Sorrow to Activisim’. Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 123, No. 488, Spring 2010, pp. 179-217. Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Literary Form. Oxford University Press, New York, 1965. Stewart, J., ‘Objects in Space and Time: Metonymy in Durrell’s Island Books’. Style. Vol. 34, No. 1, 2000. Sturken, M., Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic and the Politics of Remembering. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997. —, Tourists of History. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2007. Winter, J., Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.

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__________________________________________________________________ Young, J.E., The Texture of Memory. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993. Catherine Ann Collins is a Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at Willamette University. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1977. She writes and teaches in the areas of visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of war, memory and memorials and media framing. Her most recent works on trauma theory include: ‘When Places Have Agency: Roadside Shrines as Traumascapes’ co-authored with Alexandra Opie. Reprinted in M. Broderick and A. Traverso (eds.), Interrogating Trauma: Collective Suffering in Global Arts and Media, Routledge, New York, 2011, pp. 107-118; and ‘Media and Memorializing: Requiem by the Photographers who Died in Vietnam and Indochina,’ in Y. Pasadeos (ed.), Advances in Communication and Mass Media Research, Athens, Greece, ATINER, 2010, pp. 553-564.

Be Careful with that Trauma, Christoph: Schlingensief’s Dissensual Staging of the Unrepresentable Janus Currie Abstract Trauma is often characterised as an intrusive and unwanted return of mental images caused by the experience of an overwhelming event. In recent years, the artistic response to, and public mediation of this process of return is frequently theorised through the conceptual rubric of unrepresentability. The idea of unrepresentability connotes that art lacks the appropriate language and form to represent the exceptional nature of the traumatic event. The issue of unrepresentability provides the starting point from which this chapter will explore the remediation of historic trauma in contemporary aesthetic practice which attempts to challenge current systems of exclusion. It will focus on two actions/public performances, Chance 2000 (1998) and Foreigners Out (2000) by German filmmaker, theatre director and performance artist Christoph Schlingensief to explore artistic intervention in contemporary modes of exclusion. It will examine how his reproduction of that which is considered unrepresentable (e.g. the concentration camps) is utilised to represent those who are ‘unrepresented’, excluded and rendered invisible within dominant public discourse (such as asylumseekers and refugees). I will explore how Schlingensief’s work draws parallels between and over-identifies with the political language of contemporary exclusion and that of a r epressed National Socialist past. Chance 2000 will be discussed primarily as a means to extrapolate how Schlingensief conceptualizes current systems of exclusion, while Foreigners Out is focused on the remediation of historic trauma. These works are examined within the framework of philosopher Jacques Rancière’s aesthetico-political concept of dissensus. Key Words: Christoph Schlingensief, exclusion, asylum-seekers, dissensus, Jacques Rancière, trauma, unrepresentability. ***** Trauma is often characterised as an intrusive and unwanted return of mental images caused by the experience of an overwhelming event. In recent years, the artistic response to, and public mediation of this process of return is frequently theorised through the conceptual rubric of unrepresentability. The idea of unrepresentability connotes that art lacks the appropriate language and form to represent the exceptional nature of the traumatic event. The issue of unrepresentability provides the starting point from which this chapter will explore the remediation of historic trauma in contemporary aesthetic practice which attempts to challenge current systems of exclusion. It will focus on two

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__________________________________________________________________ actions/public performances, Chance 2000 (1998) and Foreigners Out (2000) by German filmmaker, theatre director and performance artist Christoph Schlingensief to explore artistic intervention in contemporary modes of exclusion. I intend to illustrate how his reproduction of that which is considered unrepresentable (e.g. the concentration camps) is utilised to represent those who are ‘unrepresented’, excluded and rendered invisible within dominant public discourse (such as asylumseekers and refugees). I will explore how Schlingensief’s work draws parallels between and over-identifies with the political language of contemporary exclusion and that of a repressed National Socialist past. I will discuss Chance 2000 primarily as a means to extrapolate how Schlingensief conceptualizes current systems of exclusion, and focus on Foreigners Out more specifically in relation to the remediation of historic trauma. These works are examined within the framework of philosopher Jacques Rancière’s aesthetico-political concept of dissensus. The idea of unrepresentability has a long history within a Western art tradition. Moses’ ban on representation, or Malevich’s White Square on White Background, to depictions of the Holocaust, all, as Jacques Rancière argues, are subsumed under the concept of unrepresentability that pervades writing on contemporary visual culture. 1 Indeed, the discourses of ‘unrepresentability’ and ‘unspeakability’ are particularly prominent in writing that has emerged from studies and depictions of and around the Holocaust. Many of these works contend that certain events are too unfathomable or horrible to warrant representation, especially fictional representation. Exemplifying such a position, Theodore Adorno famously went as far as to suggest that: ‘writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.’ 2 Since the mid 1990s the work of authors such as Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman and Dominick LaCapra, have dominated theoretical discussions about the reproduction and remediation of trauma and through these studies the idea of unrepresentability has been at the forefront of trauma studies discourse. 3 Schlingensief’s work takes this art and media concept of unrepresentability, particularly in relation to the holocaust, as somewhat of a given, as something that is now firmly entrenched within art discourse. However, what his performances demonstrate is that due to political necessity, notably in the case of Foreigners Out, the idea of unrepresentability must be mobilized to represent those who are excluded from the so-called ‘democratic’ and ‘inclusive’ public sphere. Through his conceptualisation of the police Rancière critiques the rhetoric of inclusive consensus-driven democracy propagated by many states, as, for Rancière, consensus is the very thing that suppresses political subjectification. The notion of the police (not to be confused with the regular police force) suggests a system of implicit general laws and historically formed discourses that define and allocate certain roles within society (who can legitimately do or say a particular thing and when). 4 Rancière argues that logic of the police and its systems of distribution not only supports participation and inclusion within a ‘community’ but also legitimates

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__________________________________________________________________ the separation and exclusion of those who fall outside the presupposition of the ‘shared common’ of the community. It is a system of distribution and management (what he calls a distribution of the sensible), upon which the general laws of this ‘shared common’ are based: it legitimises particular modes of being, doing, making, seeing, speaking and acting. 5 Rancière contends that politics, in its basic sense, ‘occurs when there is a place and a way for two heterogeneous processes to meet,’ 6 and therefore argues that consensus comes to represent a disappearance of politics. Accordingly, political subjectification occurs when those who have ‘no part’ (who do n ot count as speaking beings) in the ‘shared common’ of the community take part and speak in this community, which disrupts the police order and gives rise to politics. This is what Rancière calls a process of dissensus. Schlingensief has stated that ‘art ought to be more political and politics more artful’ 7 and indeed the idea of dissensus itself is in equal part aesthetic as it is political. Aesthetics, for Rancière is political as it is ‘a delimitation of spaces and times of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise that simultaneously determines the place and the stakes of politics as a form of experience.’ 8 Accordingly, ‘artistic intervention can be political by modifying the visible, the ways of perceiving it, expressing it, and experiencing it.’ 9 Aesthetic practice can therefore potentially create a ‘shift in public consciousness concerning how we see, what is seen, who can legitimately say this is what is seen.’ 10 So what I argue here is that dissensus, in the context of this project, is conceptualized as an aesthetic practice that re-examines discursive boundaries of art and politics in order to encourage a reversal of perspective. Schlingensief’s work consistently endeavours to interrogate the discursive boundaries of art and politics and the limits of a liberal, inclusive public sphere. In 1998 he created, in cooperation with the Volksbuhne theatre in Berlin, an ‘election campaign circus’ - Chance 2000 - The Party of the Last Chance which paralleled the German federal election campaigns. The Chance 2000 party invited the unemployed, the mentally ill and physically disabled (among others) to become candidates for the upcoming election. Under the banner ‘vote for yourself’ members were given the opportunity to put themselves forward as party candidates (and vote for themselves) instead of voting for members of political parties and allowing them to speak on their behalf. This project spanned several months and involved at least five distinct phases or campaign type actions. However, what is of interest to me here is the theoretical underpinning that Schlingensief devised to explore the ‘implicitly exclusionary mechanisms of certain public places.’ 11 Schlingensief developed an idea he labelled ‘Systems Theory’ to help explore these mechanisms. He differentiates between System 1 - the discourses produced by those involved in, to name a few, political parties, the art system and the mass media - and System 2, those who are excluded from the discourses of System 1, such as the disabled, refugees and asylum seekers. 12 The aim of Schlingensief’s Systems Theory and Chance 2000 was to push the excluded citizens of System 2

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__________________________________________________________________ into a third system, one in which they were ‘visible’ and ‘audible’ and could thus challenge the discourses of the dominant system without being subsumed into it. 13 Thus, Chance 2000 was a dissensual project as it both attempted to foster political subjectification and modify politics as a form of experience. Foreigners Out, like Chance 2000, also endeavoured to challenge the mechanisms of exclusion present in the ‘inclusive’ public sphere by dealing with the unrepresented, but did so by explicitly engaging with the historic trauma of the concentrations camps and thus more directly with the notion of unrepresentability. Schlingensief attempted to intervene in the political landscape of the time and create a s pace that fostered dissensus and the meeting, or perhaps in this case collision, of heterogeneous voices. The event was staged from 11 June till 17 June 2000 as part of the Vienna Festival. Twelve asylum-seekers were ‘confined’ in a series of containers that formed makeshift rooms, which were located in a central square (Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz) in Vienna. Above the containers a large sign with the words ‘Foreigners Out’ was visible. Six cameras were set up throughout the containers and monitored the participants’ activities and daily routines and the footage was broadcast live via Internet television. Tabloid-style profiles of the participants were also posted on the Foreigners Out website. The format overtly mimics that of the highly popular reality television show Big Brother to the extent that all but one of the participants are supposed to be eliminated or ‘voted out’ of the container, yet instead of merely leaving the show the asylum seekers must leave Austria. The first season of Big Brother Germany ended its run only two days before the commencement of the project so the idea was particularly fresh in the public’s imagination. To work in the format of Big Brother, the event required the involvement of the Viennese public, which it received, as 80,000 people voted during the weeklong event. 14 The documentary Ausländer Raus! Schlingensiefs Container (Paul Poet, 2002), which was conceptually designed by Schlingensief, provides extensive coverage of the weeklong event. Indeed, the documentary was conceptualised as part of the project itself, an extension of it, rather than a neutral observation of the event. The inauguration of the far right anti-immigration party, the Freedom Party of Austria, into the Austrian government provided the catalyst for staging the event. Luc Bondy, the director of the 2000 Vienna Arts Festival, had invited Schlingensief to create a work that would demonstrate the Viennese art community’s opposition to the Freedom Party’s place in the government. 15 One of the Freedom Party’s major platforms was and still is the prevention of cultural and national ‘contamination’ from immigration and asylum abuse. Founding members of the party, which formed in 1956, were former National Socialists and many party slogans echo those of Nazism. For instance, a popular question that then leader Jörg Haider often posed was whether it is necessary to have ‘140,000 unemployed and 180,000 immigrant workers’ which reads much like the Nazi posters which stated ‘500,000 unemployed - 400,000 Jews: The solution is easy.’ 16

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__________________________________________________________________ The Freedom Party also revitalized the Nazi-era slogan ‘Stop Over-foreignization’ (uberfremdung). Trauma is often theorised in relation to the idea of a return, and Foreigners Out links this idea associated with a traumatic return to a return within a historically and politically specific context. Freud suggested that the uncanny ‘is actually nothing new or strange, but something that was long familiar to the psyche and was estranged from it only through being repressed.’ 17 Indeed, it is through the ‘return of the repressed’ that a potent manifestation of the uncanny emerges. In The Meaning of Sarkozy Alain Badiou discusses the concept of the uncanny in relation to French history. 18 His reworking of the uncanny here suggests that the repressed elements of the historico-political past can return reconfigured in contemporary political life. Foreigners Out deals with this same return in a context specific to Austria. It critiques the idea of Anschluss, a term coined to refer to the political union of Austria with Nazi-Germany, the term also implies that ‘Austrians were not really responsible for their endorsement of National Socialism.’ 19 Schlingensief’s project endeavours to represent how this inability of Austrian society to take responsibility for their part in Nazism is manifested in the xenophobic politics of the Freedom Party today. Schlingensief suggests that in the project he was ‘producing images that simply take Freedom Party leader Jörg Haider and his slogans at their word.’ 20 The containers in which the asylumseekers were housed, and which Schlingesief proclaims were ‘interactive concentration-camps,’ clearly refer to the confinement of ethnic minorities by the National Socialists, but also allude to the conditions in which refugees are confined in the deportation/detention centre on the outskirts of Vienna. By placing the ‘concentration-camp-containers’ in the central square in Vienna, adjacent to the opera house, Schlingensief is also inferring that traces of this shameful feature of Nazism still play a part in Austrian culture and public life. Giorgio Agamben suggests that the camp is ‘the hidden matrix and nomos of the political space in which we are still living.’ 21 And although Schlingensief’s project is most certainly intentionally ‘ghosted by the spectre of Nazi concentration camps’ 22 the re-emergence of the camp as a ‘legitimate’ practice in exceptional circumstances has been galvanized in recent years by images from and statesanctioned exclusion practiced at places such as Guantánamo Bay. The camp, described by Agamben as a ‘zone of irreducible indistinction’ 23 that reduces its inhabitants to a state of ‘bare life’ is an exemplar of the unrepresentable horror committed under National Socialism but also a symbol of the politics the exclusion of twenty-first century democracies. As Richard Langston suggests of Foreigners Out: ‘Playing the game of exclusion in the streets of Vienna thus made palpable not only the contemporary politics of exclusion touted by Haider but also its historical precedent, the culmination of modern biopolitics.’ 24 Schlingensief’s interactive-concentration-camps were thus reproductions of that which is widely

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__________________________________________________________________ considered unrepresentable to foreground what must be spoken about in contemporary political discourse. By utilising the discourse of unrepresentability to represent those usually excluded, Schlingensief created a dissensual space in which heterogeneous voices could disrupt, for a time, the consensual hegemony of the existing police order. As I mentioned earlier, the self-proclaimed premise of Schlingensief’s artistic practice is that ‘art should be more political and politics more artistic’. His works Chance 2000 and Foreigners Out demonstrate the Rancièrian contention that politics can be aesthetic and aesthetics political as they both potentially enable a reconfiguration of what is perceived as visible and audible in the ‘shared common’ of the community. In both its embodiment of the historic return of repressed trauma and the ‘interactive concentration camps’ very physical intervention into the daily experience of the Viennese public, Schlingensief’s Foreigners Out worked to create a gap in the distribution of the sensible, to render visible that which is not normally seen, by ‘plac[ing] one world in another’ 25 Indeed, as Rancière argues: ‘the Police order is always at once a system of circulation and a system of borders …[a]nd the practice of dissensus is always a practice that both crosses boundaries and stops traffic.’ 26 For Schlingensief, staging the unrepresentable through remediating historic trauma is an effective method through which to spark critical debate about, and a reconfiguring of the public perception of contemporary exclusionary practice.

Notes 1

J. Rancière, The Future of the Image, trans. G. Elliott, Verso, London & New York, 2007, p. 109. 2 T. Adorno, Prisms, trans. S. Weber, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981, p. 34. 3 See for example: C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996., S Felman, The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2002; D. LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001. 4 J. Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. J. Rose, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999, p. 26. 5 J. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. G. Rockhill, Continuum London, 2006, p. 13. 6 Rancière, Disagreement, p. 28. 7 S. Gade, ‘Putting the Public Sphere to the Test: On Public and Counter-Publics in Chance 2000’, Christoph Schlingensief: Art Without Borders, T. Forrest and A. Scheer (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010, p. 89. 8 Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, p. 13.

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__________________________________________________________________ 9

J. Rancière, ‘Art of the Possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in Conversation with Jacques Rancière’, Artforum, March 2007, p. 259. 10 R. Porter, ‘Distribution of the Sensible’, Variant 30, 2007, p. 17. 11 Gade, ‘Putting the Public Sphere to the Test’, p. 92. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 K. Weiss, ‘Recycling the Image of the Public Sphere in Art’, Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Cambridge, viewed on 15 December 2010, http://architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/issue-contents/23/weiss23/weiss23.htm. 15 D. Varney, ‘Right Now Austria Looks Ridiculous: Please Love Austria! – Reforming the Interaction between Art and Politics’, Christoph Schlingensief: Art without Borders, T. Forrest and A. Scheer (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010, p. 109. 16 R. Gärnter, ‘The FPÖ, Foreigners and Racism in the Haider Era’, The Haider Phenomenon in Austria, R. Wodak and A. Pelinka (eds), Transaction Publishers, Somerset, 2003, p. 19. 17 S. Freud, The Uncanny, trans. D. McLintock, Penguin Books, New York, 2003, p. 148. 18 A. Badiou, The Meaning of Sarkozy, trans. D. Fernbach, Verso, London & New York, 2008, p. 85. 19 Weiss, ‘Recycling the Image of the Public Sphere in Art’. 20 Ausländer Raus! Schlingensiefs Container, DVD, Monitorpop, Berlin, 2002. 21 G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. D. HellerRoazen, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998, p. 166. 22 Varney, ‘Right Now Austria Looks Ridiculous’, p. 117. 23 Agamben, Homo Sacer, p. 9. 24 R. Langston, ‘Schlingensief’s Peep-Show: Post-Cinematic Spectacles and the Public Space of History’, After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and Austrian Experimental Film, R. Halle and R. Steinöver (eds), Camden House, Rochester, 2008, p. 219. 25 J. Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. S. Corcoran, Continuum, London & New York, 2010, p. 38. 26 Rancière, ‘Art of the Possible’, p. 263.

Bibliography Agamben, G., Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Heller-Roazen, D., Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998. Adorno, T., Prisms. Trans. Weber, S., MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981.

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__________________________________________________________________ Badiou, A., The Meaning of Sarkozy. Trans. Fernbach, D., Verso, London & New York, 2008. Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996. Felman, S., The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2002. Freud S., The Uncanny. Trans. McLintock, D., Penguin Books, New York, 2003. Gade, S., ‘Putting the Public Sphere to the Test: On Public and Counter-Publics in Chance 2000’. Christoph Schlingensief: Art without Borders, Forrest, T. and Scheer, A. (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010. Gärnter R., ‘The FPÖ, Foreigners and Racism in the Haider Era’. The Haider Phenomenon in Austria. Wodak, R. and Pelinka, A. (eds), Transaction Publishers, Somerset, 2003. LaCapra, D., Writing History, Writing Trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001. Langston R., ‘Schlingensief’s Peep-Show: Post-Cinematic Spectacles and the Public Space of History’. After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and Austrian Experimental Film. Halle, R. and Steinöver, R. (eds), Camden House, Rochester, 2008. Porter R., ‘Distribution of the Sensible’. Variant. Vol. 30, 2007, pp.17-18. Rancière, J., Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Trans. Rose, J., University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999. Rancière, J., The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Trans. Rockhill, G., Continuum London, 2006. Rancière, J., ‘Art of the Possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in Conversation with Jacques Rancière’. Artforum. March 2007, pp. 256-269. Rancière, J., The Future of the Image. Trans. Elliott, G., Verso, London & New York, 2007.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rancière, J., Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Trans. Corcoran, S., Continuum, London & New York, 2010. Varney D., ‘Right Now Austria Looks Ridiculous: Please Love Austria! – Reforming the Interaction between Art and Politics’. Christoph Schlingensief: Art without Borders. Forrest, T. and Scheer, A. (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010. Weiss, K., ‘Recycling the Image of the Public Sphere in Art’. Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Viewed on 15 December 2010. http://architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/issue-contents/23/weiss23/weiss23.htm. Ausländer Raus! Schlingensiefs Container. DVD, Monitorpop, Berlin, 2002. Janus Currie is a P hD student in the Film, Television and Media Department at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Email: [email protected]

Etiquette of Grief Ellie Harrison

Matt Tullett/photographydept.com ©2010 Abstract Once I went to a f uneral and I was one of the first people to arrive at the wake. What the caterers had done was put a CD of people talking on so there wouldn’t be any awkward silence. I thought the CD was a great idea. It reminded me of professional mourners; you’d get them in like hired event planners to marshal and co-ordinate people’s expressions of grief. They would use a rhythm setting tambourine but I think the CD was good too... Key Words: Grief, personal, funeral, celebration, public, national, rules. ***** 1. Etiquette of Grief Etiquette of Grief is a solo performance exploring bereavement in relation to individual and collective identity. The performance examines historic events and asks how the mediatised deaths of the famous, impact upon the civilian in everyday life. Etiquette of Grief is the first part of a broader project of study entitled The Grief Series. The series of works correlate to the seven stage grief model used in popular psychology and provide seven opportunities to collaborate with artists working in different disciplines such as film, interactive web project, durational

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__________________________________________________________________ performance and photography. Combining the autobiographical with academic research into art and trauma, the performance seeks to question notions of public and private space. Is there a time and a place for displays of extreme emotion, and if so, when do t hese arise? How do we remember the dead and how does bereavement influence ones sense of self? How might the bereaved articulate the private experience of grief in public, work and social space? How might a b ereaved person relay news of the death to friends, family and colleagues? At a time of personal crisis, where emotions can be complex, conflicting and raw, the bereaved are often expected to be more than usually articulate and communicative. How might a bereaved person overcome the fear of social awkwardness and break the silence surrounding the subject matter? In the context of the live performance, Ellie invites an expert in the field to advise her on how best to communicate her grief to the audience. Whilst acknowledging the complexity and depth of the subject matter, the work aims to be playful, challenging and accessible, leaving space for the audience’s thought’s feelings and memories. I would like the audience both here and at the live event to become witnesses. As Etchells suggests, to witness an event is to be present at it i n some fundamentally ethical way, to feel the weight of things and one’s own place in them, even if that place is simply, for that moment, as an onlooker. Witnessing allows the dead, the disappeared, the lost, to continue to live as we rediscover their force in our ongoing present. 1 2. Performance The following are selected excerpts from the script as a trace or remnant of the live event. The performance, like life, cannot be held on to, refusing to stay in one place. This is both frustrating and delighting. Ellie: I’m here today because I’ve lost someone very dear to me and although it’s been thirteen years since her death, I still haven’t got over it. She was funny, intelligent and beautiful but above all kind, caring and compassionate to those around her. Whenever something bad happened to her, when the divorce came through, she kept going, she persevered. I’ve tried to be like that but I don’t know if I can be because life isn’t the same without her. Simple tasks become difficult like getting out of bed, getting dressed in the morning and remembering to eat at meal times. I just can’t stop thinking about her trapped in that dark place ... I

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__________________________________________________________________ know I’m not the only one grieving. I know that when she died I wasn’t the only one left behind, I’m sure the boys feel the same ... I try to focus on the happy memories, that day on the log flume, or just her dancing and having fun. She had that black dress that flared out when she danced. I’ve got that great picture of her at the Michael Jackson concert looking all giddy. People didn’t appreciate her when she was alive but now they realise that a great light has gone out. For all of us who miss her and just can’t get over it, I’ve held this memorial. It’s really heartening that you are reading this now, for me to know that I’m not alone, that you are struggling with your grief as much as I am. I thought a minute silence would be a good way of us all getting into the right head space. But then I thought silence can be a bit awkward and also a bit boring. I’ve called in a specialist via video link to help us through our grief so that we start in the right frame of mind. Eleanor is very dynamic; she’s sort of the Gillian McKeith of bereavement therapy. In fact, when I lost my ... sorry anyway, we’ve become quite good friends and I hope you’ll make her feel really welcome. Ellie turns to face a l arge screen where a v ideo link to Eleanor, the bereavement expert, fades into view. Eleanor: When you tell people about your bereavement, try and be sensitive to the needs of others. It can be difficult for everyone involved and people don’t usually know what to say when you tell them. Avoid saying things like they are ‘dead’ as this can seem too brutal and create an awkward silence. Instead use phrases like ‘late’, ‘passed away’ or ‘they are no longer with us’. People are likely to have more physical contact with you around this time and may hug and kiss you more. Therefore it is vital to always take care to be clean, well presented and smelling nice. Carry mints and deodorant, as you never know when you might bump into someone who might want to offer their condolences.

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If you have lost someone very close to you, you will need to find ways of reinforcing or creating new support networks to help fill the gap left by your loved one. As well as a time for sadness, the funeral can be a fantastic social occasion and the perfect time to reconnect with friends and relatives you may not have seen for a while. Make sure you are warm and pleasant at the wake. After all, you may need support from these people and don’t want to alienate them or make them feel embarrassed. Make sure everyone has sandwiches and a hot drink. Before the service make sure that you make cards to say thank you to people who send flowers. This way, as soon as you return from the wake, you can write people’s names in and can pop them in the post the same day. After all, you will need something to keep yourself occupied in the evenings. There is no time like the present. Throw yourself into work or a project you feel enthusiastic about. Give yourself a reason to get up in the morning. I like to make table centre pieces because it is a cr eative way of dealing with my feelings whilst also giving endless pleasure to others.

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__________________________________________________________________ A tip for people who have lost a member of their immediate family: if you do decide to give your loved ones things away to charity, do make sure that you donate to organisations outside your local area as the last thing you want is to see is a display of the deceased’s clothes in a s hop window as you walk down the high street. Well I hope that’s been really useful! Here are some tips for the audience on how to deal with a bereaved person. If you hear someone crying, then the best thing to do is give them a firm hug and tell them to ssh. Try giving them a hug and telling them ‘It’ll be alright’ and perhaps even a sturdy pat on the back. If they continue to cry, explain to the grieving person that they have to take the rough with the smooth. Perhaps you could give an example of difficulty from your own life. For example, when my car broke down last year I just had to accept it and buy a new one. If they are still crying, go into another room and turn your music up loud. This sends a clear message to the grieving person that they need to move on. If all else fails stop calling them, asking how they are and generally avoid them. And remember, it’s not your fault that they are grieving. Delegate the responsibility for caring for the flowers you have received. You don’t want to wake up one morning to realise you are surrounded by dead flowers everywhere, like your home is filled with death and decay. Sometimes when people die, friends often erase their name from their address book and if you’re not careful this can mean you get erased too. Make sure you reconnect with friends of the departed. Your first Christmas without your loved one is always tough but will seem ten times worse if all the people who usually send you presents have deleted your address and you receive nothing. Remember what the leaflet said: ➢ Grow up! Give me patience to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.

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__________________________________________________________________ ➢Smile and keep pruning the tree of worry branch by branch. ➢Cry in private and then say stop. If this doesn’t work, try using the traffic light system below: ➢ Stop! Negative thoughts, control emotions, use inner strength to build confidence. ➢ Accept! Life has changed. Love nature, God, music, sports, friends and hobbies. ➢Go! Love yourself. Negative emotions can make you ill. Ellie: I’ve been thinking ... I’ve been thinking about princess Diana. I’ve been thinking about what she might say to you if she was here. And I think she would say this: I’m the sort of person who isn’t afraid to make a s tand and say what they think. I’m articulate about how I feel and if I’m upset, I let it show. There are people out there who don’t like that, they would rather I stay quiet because an inarticulate person is no danger to society. In the spirit of free speech and as a blow to conformity I would like to say this. This is for the marginalised, for the silenced. This is for all the children who’ve lost parents and parents who’ve lost children and children who’ve lost pets. It’s for all the brothers and sisters who’ve lost siblings. This is for all the grandchildren without grandparents. This is for all the widows and widowers. This is for everyone who has people they love and know that one day those people won’t be there anymore. This is for the grieving and those soon to be grieving, whichever group you are in. For you, I will not be quiet, will not behave, will not be pleasant or strong or keep a dignified silence. For you, I will try and forget my manners.

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Notes 1

T. Etchells, Certain Fragments, Routledge, London, 1999, p. 13.

Bibliography Etchells, T., Certain Fragments. Routledge, London, 1999. Ellie Harrisson is a Leeds based artist and performance maker. She creates a range of solo, collaborative, durational and site-specific performances and artworks that constantly try to seek out the sincere in the synthetic and unpick media imagery. Her distinctive brand of solo performance involves contrasting source material with her own autobiography and the experiences of the audiences she performs to. Etiquette of Grief is a solo performance touring the UK and Europe in 2011/2012. It is part of a series of performances and art works which correlate to the seven stage grief model in popular psychology. The second instalment, The Reservation is an intimate performance for hotel rooms, touring the north of England in 2011/2012.

Dying on TV: Traumatic Encounter, on Screen and for Real Misha Kavka Abstract In recent years there has been a growing public fascination with the televisual documentation of what Vivian Sobchack has called ‘unsimulated death’. Whether in the form of television documentary, reality TV, first-person diaries, celebrity docs or disaster clips, these seemingly scattered instances make up the hazy outlines of a paradigm shift in the way that Western media culture screens death. Once relegated to brief but controversial news items, the possibility of dying on camera has now entered the cultural imaginary in more extended forms, as intimate footage of ordinary people breathing their last or daily reports of celebrities living out their dying in the media glare. To compel our attention, the death must be real, but such reality edges into the unbearable, raising questions about the ethics of visualizing traumatic encounter for mediated public witnessing. This chapter addresses the traumatic encounter within the epistemological framework of mediated dying. Key to the traumatic kernel of any encounter with death is its unrepresentability on the one hand - when does death occur? how do we know? and the proximity to what is unknowable on the other. Technologically and affectively, however, the television camera brings a mass viewership into the intimate present/presence of death, both exacerbating the traumatic effect and shifting the representational, social and ethical codes by which we ‘know’ dying. Through a comparison of two different instances of dying on TV - Silverlake Life (PBS/USA, 1993) and Jade (LivingTV/UK, 2008/09) - the chapter aims to untangle the ethics of traumatic encounter through attention to media form, encounter and the affective labour of the camera. Key Words: Dying, television, reality TV, ethics, affect, Silverlake Life, Jade Goody. ***** In recent years there has been a g rowing fascination with the televisual documentation of what Vivian Sobchack has called ‘unsimulated death’. Whether in the form of terminal-disease documentary, reality TV footage, first-person diaries, celebrity docs or disaster clips, these seemingly scattered instances make up the hazy outlines of a paradigm shift in the way that Western media culture approaches death. Once relegated to serious documentary or brief news items, death on camera has now crossed over into the ‘light programming’ genres of postdocumentary culture. Indeed, the possibility of seeing someone actually die on screen has begun to enter the cultural imaginary, as real people find reason or occasion to live out their dying in front of cameras and hence in front of the public.

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__________________________________________________________________ These deaths compel our attention because they are real, but such reality also edges into the unbearable, raising questions about the ethics and affect of staging this traumatic encounter for mediated public witnessing. As the television camera brings a mass viewership into the intimate present/presence of death, it creates a shift in the representational, social and ethical codes by which we ‘know’ dying. This is more than just a matter of changes in television content, for it marks a difference in the way we now apprehend trauma. Since Cathy Caruth’s celebrated work on trauma in the mid-1990s, trauma theory has largely been concerned with the unrepresentability of the traumatic event. As Caruth has argued, following Freud, the traumatic event is the site of a wounding experience and a failure of memory. 1 Caruth’s work has been exemplary in showing how texts nonetheless carry traces of ‘some forgotten wound’, bearing witness through material hieroglyphics and symbolic absences to an unrepresentable event. Dying on TV, however, moves this discussion to radically different terrain, since such instances offer to present rather than represent the event. Death occurs as the camera is running; although the event is mediated, it nonetheless happens in some sense before our very eyes. As a traumatic event, this requires a conceptual reframing of trauma theory, from an emphasis on bodily experience to the experience of seeing, from traumatic wounding to traumatic viewing, from memory of the past to an occurrence in the present. As a starting point for this reframing, I would suggest that dying on camera is shocking because it presents us with too much to see, with a surfeit of representation rather than its lack. This is in line with what I consider to be a shift in trauma studies from an interest in unrepresentability to overrepresentation. Caught at the intersection between histories of violence and cultures of over-sharing, the traumatic world seems to have little trouble articulating itself. It is how to deal with its many articulations that is now the question. Although the presentation of dying has become more accessible through televisual mediation, the representation of death remains taboo in the West. In fact, given the liberalization of acceptable images of the erotic and exotic, we might say that unsimulated death marks the limit point of where the camera can go and what it can capture. The cultural history of the death taboo has been elegantly reviewed by Vivian Sobchack in an unsurpassed article written in 1984 that sets out a ‘semiotic phenomenology of death’ in documentary film. 2 Extending Philippe Ariès’s argument that the once-public process of dying became privatized, technologized and medicalised in the twentieth century, Sobchack argues that ‘‘natural death’ [disappeared] from public space and discourse’, 3 becoming ‘‘unnatural’ and ‘unnameable’ in our real social relations’. 4 The disappearance of ‘natural death’ has left us with a public space that, ironically, is drenched in violent death, as is richly evidenced by Hollywood’s ongoing fascination with war films, action heroes and increasingly imaginative graphic horror. Such images of violent death, however, are permissible only because they come wrapped in the protective

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__________________________________________________________________ membrane of fictive representation. 5 When this membrane is ruptured by indices of actual death, the representation of death threatens to become unbearable. This metaphor of rupture is precisely the terminology used by Freud to define the process of trauma. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud encourages his readers to understand traumatic neuroses as the consequence of an extensive rupture of the cerebral ‘skin’ (Rinde) that protects the organism from excessive stimuli. 6 In Sobchack’s terms, such a rupture or ‘violation’ occurs whenever the representational system of documentary takes up the ‘unnatural and unnameable’ object of death: when death is represented as fictive rather than real … it is understood that only the simulacrum of a visual taboo is being violated. However, when death is represented as real, when its signs are structured and inflected so as to function indexically, a visual taboo is violated, and the representation must find ways to justify the violation. 7 The traumatic rupture of the visual taboo requires justification, which in turn is provided through an ethical framing. For Sobchack, it is in the documentary mediation of the encounter - between death and the spectator, between the screen and the social world - that the ethical relation inheres: Before the event of unsimulated death, the viewer’s very act of looking is ethically charged and is, itself, the object of ethical judgment when it is viewed: the viewer is held ethically responsible for his or her visible visual response. 8 (orig. emphasis) This ethical charge gives ‘serious’ documentary its gravity, but the responsibility of viewing ethically is discharged elsewhere, through what - in a departure from Sobchack - I would call the affective gaze of personal documentary. As an example, I would like to consider Silverlake Life: The View from Here (Friedman, 1993), a film based on autobiographical video footage shot by filmmaker Tom Joslin to document his own and his partner Mark Massi’s struggles with AIDS. The filming was begun in 1989 when Joslin learned, following Massi’s own diagnosis, that he had full-blown AIDS. Turning the camera on himself and his surroundings, Joslin shot the film both as a billet doux to his long-time lover Mark and as a journal of the labour that goes into dying. When Joslin passed away in 1990 and Massi another eleven months later, they left 40 hours of film to be edited and completed by Joslin’s friend and ex-student Peter Friedman.

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__________________________________________________________________ Peggy Phelan, in her book Mourning Sex, has written very sensitively about Silverlake Life as a f ilm that ‘resolutely and imaginatively re-examines the link between the temporality of death and the temporality of cinema’. 9 For Phelan, the film exemplifies a ‘cinema for the dead’ which offers the succour of reversible time within the framework of the moving image. Scraps of moving image, after all, can be cut out of linear time and reorganized; events can be shuffled and the dead can be resurrected. Indeed, Friedman’s editing of Silverlake Life exemplifies this reversibility. The film begins at the end, with an interview Friedman conducted with Massi five months after Joslin had died. The film ends, moreover, with a return: a formal return to the interview with Massi and a thematic return, for Massi now talks about Joslin himself returning, coming back as an ‘energy’ to soothe the grieving Mark. The final three minutes of film take us even further back, to video footage of happier days showing the two younger, healthy bodies of Tom and Mark dancing to a 60s love song. This inversion of narrative temporality, from back to front, ‘makes visible time’s reversibility’ something which is possible ‘only in cinema’. 10 Cinema is the medium which can turn the physical body into a phantasmal ‘still-moving body [that] leaves a trace’; it can make the traumatic encounter with death speak through the traces of its reversibility. Dancing out their days in a post-mortal loop, the bodies of the two lovers continue to move and to move us. Motion and emotion are brought together in the closing sequence, and the finality of dying is overridden by the cinematic temporality of the recurring past. I have, however, left a yawning gap in my rush to knit together the beginning and end of this film. For what makes this film a compelling and traumatic document is precisely how close it comes to documenting dying. So close that it forces us to ask when Tom’s dying happens - is it now? was it just then? - and to question how we think we know. In actuality, there is perhaps a week between the last representation of Tom alive on screen and the first sight of him after he has died, but the cut between these two images is so quick, and the two shots are so formally similar, that his death seems initially ungraspable. In his last interview tocamera, the emaciated Tom makes the effort to speak, but his voice is ghostly, dependent on a body too weak to frame the words. Struggling to say something about ‘friends’, Tom’s last word is ‘good. before the shot cuts suddenly to a similar framing but a different body, the now-dead body. The sudden cut to this same-butdifferent body is a s hock, a rupture in the fabric of the film that catches us unawares. We don’t know whether Tom is living, dying or dead; we need time to process the difference between the stages, a difference which can only be grasped in an act of retrospection. As Phelan notes, without Massi’s voice-over announcement that ‘it is the first July and Tom has just died’, we would not know that the image on the screen is the now-dead body: ‘In this sense’, she writes, ‘it is literally an after-image’. 11 The viewer’s ethical relation to this death is bound to, and by, the grief of the living. Before Massi’s voice-over we hear his wail, arising as though it were the

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__________________________________________________________________ after-shock of Tom’s last word, ‘good’. Before we even register the existential shift from living-dying to now-dead, the body on screen is already encompassed by grief, framed by affect in the quivering of Massi’s voice as he sings a farewell love song and in the trembling of the frame that indexes the shaking of Massi’s own grieving body. The affect punctures the documentary space, flooding it into our own social, ontological world. The affect thus provides the basis of our ethical relation to the image of dead man on screen. Tom Joslin is seen dying by the person with whom he was most intimate, the person who knew him best, and this intimate seeing mediates our seeing. This intimate recognition has an ethical register, in the Levinasian sense, which in Silverlake Life appropriately concentrates our gaze on the sight of Tom’s face, first in its dying-living and then in its now-dead manifestation. Holding the face in this intimate frame becomes a form of respect for the dead, delivering Tom from the anonymity of becoming just another AIDS statistic. The ethical relation between the viewer and death documented on screen becomes trickier, however, in post-documentary culture, which is John Corner’s umbrella term for the range of factual programming that functions to entertain rather than inform. 12 How is one to maintain ethical responsibility in the traumatic mediated encounter with, for instance, a dying reality TV star? This question was raised in 2009 by the rapid decline and demise, in the glare of the media, of UK reality TV star Jade Goody. In August 2008 G oody had been diagnosed with cervical cancer, coincidentally just as her fading media career was receiving a second life from two separate reality shows, the single-episode Living with Jade Goody and the series Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother. With the cancer diagnosis, which Goody fittingly learned about on air in the Bigg Boss diary room, LivingTV decided to produce an open-ended reality series, Jade, that would chronicle Goody’s battle with cancer. As it turned out, the programme ended up chronicling, if not her actual death, then at least the process of her dying, to great public consternation. The height of the debate and condemnation that met Goody’s very public dying was triggered by a particular statement she made on 15 F ebruary 2009 i n an interview with News of the World: I’ve lived in front of the cameras. And maybe I’ll die in front of them. And I know some people don’t like what I’m doing but at this point I really don’t care what other people think. Now, it’s about what I want. The suggestion that someone may want to die on camera proved almost as disturbing in this often repeated quote as the intention that she would die on camera. Although it turned out that Goody receded from the public eye some three

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__________________________________________________________________ weeks before her death, this did not prevent many people, including obituarists, from thinking that she had indeed died on camera. Even though the people represented in post-documentary television are there for our ‘diversion’, 13 it turns out that they are nonetheless subject to death, like any living, material body. Whereas the documentation of dying in Silverlake Life can begin at the end and end with a return, however, the televisual capture of Jade Goody dying - like its daily media coverage - marched inexorably toward an end that would be the end. Phelan notes of the experience of watching Silverlake Life that ‘the spectator … must create a narrative chronology of the temporally scrambled shots’. 14 One could say the same of the TV series Jade, particularly since it appeared between August 2008 a nd March 2009 in irregular episodes which sped up exponentially as Goody’s conditioned worsened and her end neared. In the experience of watching the reality TV series, however, the viewer was forced to create a narrative chronology not because of the reversibility of cinematic time, but rather because of the presentist but non-coincident relation between the TV screen and actual bodies in the social world. Someone dying on postdocumentary television highlights the fact that the temporalities of screening and being are excruciatingly close but do not coincide. They are not free of one another, as with cinematic returns, but are rather sutured together by a real person whose dying is irrevocably linked to the progression of time. It is this doubly dying subject, in the world and on TV, that makes watching dying on camera obscenely proximate, a surfeit of representation that is ultimately ungraspable. The indexical signs of dying in documentary stitch death into the ‘real’ space of our world yet leave us with a representational deficit. As opposed to the obsessive, even hysterical ardour with which death comes to the screen in symbolic fictions, documentary is confronted with the unrepresentability of death. At the same time, viewers of unsimulated death experience an impossible desire to see: we want to see on-screen death in order to know it, yet no one really wants to feel what is it like to die. The surfeit of representation in post-documentary trauma culture arises from our desire to see death, but at the same time threatens to bring us closer than this impossible desire can support. After all, rather than wanting to experience our own death, we want to see someone else’s, to cross to the other side and come back, to make the experience of dying reversible. While the cinematic return responds to this fantasy, reality TV exposes it as bad faith, as a p oor ethical relation. A truly ethical relation - which we may not yet have developed with the screen - would admit that while the image may be reversible, the death we see marches inexorably toward our own.

Notes 1

C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2

V. Sobchack, ‘Inscribing Ethical Space: Ten Propositions on Death, Representation and Documentary’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1984, p. 283. 3 Ibid., p. 285. 4 Ibid., p. 286. 5 Ibid. 6 S. Freud, ‘Jenseits des Lustprinzips’, Beihefte der Internationalen Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig, Vienna, Zurich, 1921, p. 28. 7 Sobchack, p. 291. 8 Ibid., p. 292. 9 P. Phelan, Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories, Routledge, London and New York, 1997, p. 155. 10 Ibid., p. 166. 11 Ibid., p. 169. 12 J. Corner, ‘Documentary in a Post-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and Their Functions’, European Science Foundation ‘Changing Media – Changing Europe’ Programme, 2 A pril 2010, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/changing. media/John%20Corner%20paper.htm. 13 Ibid. 14 Phelan, p. 163.

Bibliography Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996. Corner, J., ‘Documentary in a P ost-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and Their Functions’. European Science Foundation ‘Changing Media – Changing Europe’ Programme, 2 A pril 2010, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/changing. media/John%20Corner%20paper.htm. Freud, S., ‘Jenseits des Lustprinzips’. Beihefte der Internationalen Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse. Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig, Vienna, Zurich, 1921. Kavka, M. and West A., ‘Jade the Obscure: Celebrity Death and the Mediatised Maiden’. Celebrity Studies. Vol. 1, No. 2, 2010, pp. 216-230. Phelan, P., Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories. Routledge, London and New York, 1997.

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__________________________________________________________________ Sobchack, V., ‘Inscribing Ethical Space: Ten Propositions on Death, Representation and Documentary’. Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Vol. 9, No. 4, 1984, pp. 283-300. Misha Kavka teaches in the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of Auckland. She has published widely on reality television, including Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters (Palgrave, 2008) and a forthcoming book on the genre of reality TV.

Public Hearing of Private Griefs: Investigating the Performance of History in Jane Taylor’s Ubu and the Truth Commission and John Kani’s Nothing but the Truth Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt Abstract This chapter interrogates how Jane Taylor and John Kani use factual material generated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in their plays Ubu and the Truth Commission, 1998, and Nothing but the Truth, 2002. Both locate their narratives against the backdrop of the TRC and use its testimonies to confront post-apartheid South African identity tropes. The TRC itself was a performative event - a performance of pain - that created a space for the performance of history and the negotiation of both individual and collective memory in the passage to reconciliation. Although structured differently, the telling of history and the exploration of memory are foregrounded in both plays. Kani adopts a realist form, where the national imperative is mediated through the personal history of the family unit. Ubu offers an expressionistic approach, mixing media and modes of representation, and drawing extensively on intertextual influences. Post-apartheid South African theatre practice is often concerned with how to represent the narratives of its apartheid past. The chapter explores how these plays address the core question of speaking the past, in order to mediate the tension between the desire for retribution on the one hand and the need for reconciliation on the other. Key Words: South African theatre, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ubu and the Truth Commission, William Kentridge, Jane Taylor, Handspring Puppet Company, Nothing but the Truth, John Kani, testimony, history. ***** The end of apartheid in 1994 signalled a profound paradigm shift in South Africa accomplished with relatively little violence. The apparently peaceful transition, however, concealed deep-seated divisions that have continued to emerge and confound the development of South Africa’s democracy. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up in 1996 as part of a national imperative to address these divisions and the legacy of the past. Shane Graham observes that ‘the banner hanging at every hearing proclaimed, Truth is the ‘Road to Reconciliation’. 1 The idea behind the commission was that full disclosure - truth - would lead to amnesty, thus facilitating a public cleansing to enable the construction of a new future. Significantly, however, as McMurtry notes:

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__________________________________________________________________ Of the nineteen Truth Commissions held internationally, South Africa’s was the first to have public hearings (Taylor, 1998: vii); the nation witnessed the heightened atmosphere of telling in all forms of media coverage. 2 It is this notion of witnessing that is especially important for theatre. The question of amnesty is also critical. The conflict between the desire for justice - vengeance - and the need for reconciliation created an inherent tension to the proceedings, a t ension that offers a r ich source for theatrical invention and representation. The same tension operates in any situation of trauma where victims are seeking recovery and restoration. Central to the purpose of the TRC - and vital for its theatrical connection - is the recovering of history. The TRC report notes that ‘By telling their stories, both victims and perpetrators gave meaning to the multi-layered experiences of the South African story … 3 Such recovered ‘history’ has become the source material for many post apartheid theatrical works, unsurprising perhaps, given the centrality of narrative in the theatrical process. Within the narratives of trauma, there is always scope for dramatic re-enactment(s) that can then serve as way stations on the path to healing, through the (re)processing of such narratives in structured forms. What we are particularly interested in is the way in which the narratives of the TRC have formed the subject material for post apartheid theatrical events that grapple with the shape and space of a new South African identity. Greg Homann suggests that there is an ‘increasing fascination with addressing the nuances and complexities of representing truth. These works were a d irect response to the discourse advanced by the TRC.’ 4 The notion of the complexity of the truth - and its relationship to history specifically - is what interests us in the two plays discussed here. 1. History and Identity History is supposedly objective, but we would argue that history is the weaving together of multiple voices into a metanarrative that is then ‘accepted’ as ‘truth’. In re-examining history, we are asked to re-examine notions of truth. We may then ask the question: why is history important in theatre? It is because we speak the past to confront and process it. Significantly for theatre, though, memory, which we may call individualized history, and which is central to the construction of identity both private and public, is made visible. Thus, the act of making theatre that confronts and processes history is connected to the establishment of new identity tropes that negotiate a response to, and processing of, trauma in such a way as to facilitate recovery. In the case of South Africa, the goal of the TRC was partly a national catharsis that would enable the past to be consigned to the past, thus facilitating a new beginning as a whole and undivided nation. That the realpolitik

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__________________________________________________________________ result was less exemplary than the somewhat utopian intentions does not detract from the core import of its central dogma. As Antjie Krog, poet, journalist and observer of the TRC, points out in her seminal account Country of my Skull, ‘... if you cut yourself off from the process [of the TRC], you will wake up in a foreign country -a country that you don’t know and that you will never understand.’ 5 Theatre practitioners recognized the power of the history emerging from the TRC as narratives for the beginnings of a new South African theatre project, one that Zakes Mda calls the ‘theatre of reconciliation’ 6 for a future that is yet to be made. 2. The TRC & Theatre The project of this reconciliatory theatre was aided in no small part by the overtly theatrical and performative nature of the TRC itself. William Kentridge called the TRC an exemplary civic theatre, a public hearing of private griefs which are absorbed into the body politic as a part of a deeper understanding of how the society arrived at its present position. … It awakes every day the conflict between the desire for retribution and a need for some sort of social reconciliation. 7 It was not a big leap from the TRC hearings to the notion of using the real-life testimonies as source material - locating the fictional narrative(s) necessary for the event of theatre in the non-fiction histories emerging every day in church halls and schoolrooms all over the country in ever more graphic and agonizing detail. As Jane Taylor comments, ‘the way in which individual narratives come to stand for the larger national narrative’ is what has interested her in the work of the commission, noting that ‘History and autobiography merge.’ 8 The public experience of the TRC was by no means unfiltered; indeed, the challenge of negotiating our understanding of this history was made more difficult by the fact that only the most dramatic of stories made their way into the public eye, in sound-bite-sized snatches, sandwiched between a sitcom and a soap opera. And the hearings themselves, while no doubt dramatic, also could be tedious - how many times can a version of the same basic narrative of horror be told before one becomes inured to its hearing? These are some of the questions generated in any exposure of trauma, be it personal or political. Addressing these debates is at the crux of negotiating such events theatrically. In the two plays we are interrogating, the contradictory pull between the desire for retribution and the need for reconciliation is rendered in action: largely metaphorically and ironically in Ubu and the Truth Commission (where we are forced to question the machinations of Ubu as he seeks amnesty for crimes for which we know he should not be forgiven) and more literally in Nothing But The Truth in the debates between Thando and Mandisa as to the rightness of granting

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__________________________________________________________________ amnesty at all. The aptness of drama for negotiating such contradiction lies in its ability to embrace ambiguity, tension and conflict, rather than sublimating these to the cause of nation building (as is often the project of political and media agendas). 3. Ubu and the Truth Commission The Ubu project was the result of a co llaboration between Jane Taylor (the author), William Kentridge (the director) and the Handspring Puppet Company. Significant about the production is firstly, the focus on the perpetrator narrative, and secondly, the use of puppets, especially those that perform the testimonies. Kentridge describes the tension in South Africa as being between ‘the photocopiers and the paper shredders’ 9 articulating the tension between history and memory and the creation of a new, and blank, future. Kentridge asks the question: ‘what has a wide enough mouth to swallow whatever we want to hide?’ 10 Answer: a crocodile (a nod to the groot Krokodil - big crocodile in Afrikaans - the satirical nickname given to PW Botha, former finger-waving and much-vilified president of South Africa) and thus is born the central image of the crocodile handbag puppet who consumes Ubu’s history but retains it in its secret belly so that it can emerge to damn him when necessary. Then there is the intertextual connection with Alfred Jarry’s text, Ubu Roi (1896), which famously created a huge and public furore with its scatological language, its irreverence, and its overt and satirical critique of bourgeois society. In Taylor/Kentridge’s version, Ubu is confronted with his crimes and forced to accept their consequences. The style of the work is profoundly theatrical. The interplay between the live actors (Ma and Pa Ubu), the various puppets, and the two-dimensional animations forming the backdrop for the action, produces a multilayered theatrical experience. The collage effect offers the potential to engage juxtaposition and contrast, lending itself to the experience of the very ambiguity sitting at the heart of the TRC event. The puppets are used for very distinctive purposes. Three main types emerge: 1. the vulture puppet - a mechanical bird who delivers incomprehensible squawks throughout as commentary on the action that are translated on the screen as subtitles - playing a Greek chorus-like role, pointing the audience to the significance of what is occurring on the stage. The vulture as both scavenger and, consequently, cleanser of the wild is significant. Again ambiguity is suggested: we may despise and fear the vulture as a carrion eater and symbol of death, but without its efforts, the cycle of life could not continue.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. The ‘animal’ puppets: a. Brutus the three headed dog, Ubu’s companion: t he intertextual connotations here are myriad - Brutus, best-friend and murderer of Julius Caesar; the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the gates of Hades; the dog itself - man’s ‘best friend’. Additionally, as Kentridge points out, the three heads serve as the three aspects of Ubu’s henchmen - the foot soldier, the politician, and the general - the three arms of the government that facilitated the continuation and implementation of the apartheid regime. b. Niles the crocodile - the starting image. N iles is Ma U bu’s handbag, a capacious cavity filled with more knowledge than perhaps anyone really wants. I t is the tension between the teeth (which destroy) and the belly (which preserves) that provides the most powerful signifier in terms of this puppet. 3. The witness puppets: by choosing to speak the testimonies through puppets, Kentridge and Taylor were able to work in Brechtian epic style, allowing the audience to receive the testimony without necessarily being emotionally assaulted by it. The inherent distancing effect of the puppet as performer offered a unique methodology to engage the historical narratives of the TRC. The presence of the puppeteers - two of them for each witness (echoing the presence of two people alongside each witness at the hearings - one to translate, one to comfort) - made for a unique double vision of each testimony. That the puppets are artistic masterpieces in their own right is also crucial. Each one appears to exude a living history, the pain and anguish carved into the very structure of the wood. At the same time, we are never allowed to forget that their story is only one half of the narrative; an idea reinforced by the use of Ma Ubu as the translator of the witnesses’ stories, speaking from within Ubu’s shower with its connotative references to washing away guilt and the resonances of those activists who ‘slipped in the shower’ to their deaths (a particular reference to the death of antiapartheid icon Steve Biko). It is the very theatricality of the work that, we believe, lends it its power. By engaging the tensions, ambiguities and conflicts of the drama, together with the innate and symbolist theatricality of the puppets and the animations, the work

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__________________________________________________________________ facilitates a new and invigorated understanding of the history that is at the core of the narrative. 4. Nothing but the Truth John Kani’s play adopts a far more conventionally western, realist tradition to frame his narrative. However, where Ubu examines the political metanarrative in an expressionistic and theatricalised manner, Kani elects to use the private narrative to resonate the public one. Here we are given the story of one family - the personal is offered as a way in to the political, offering, in miniature, the tale of the new South Africa. The TRC here provides the background for, rather than being the focal point of the story itself. It is against the backdrop of the history emerging at the hearings that we learn the singular history of Sipho Makhaya. That the play is largely autobiographical is also significant. It did not begin life as a play; the root of the narrative is the story of Kani’s younger brother Xolile, a political poet shot at age 25 while reading poetry at the funeral of a 9 year old girl in 1985. This play becomes what Carolyn Clay calls Kani’s ‘own truth-and-reconciliation commission.’ 11 It is achieved through the speaking of hitherto unspoken history the history of all those whose stories have not been immortalized or dramatized in the TRC roadshow. The play’s anti-hero, Sipho Makhaya, is one of those who stayed, crying out, ‘I paid for this freedom ... They must never forget the little people like me.’ 12 In this, as in many ways, Sipho is a contemporary South African Willy Loman, the small man, who, as Arthur Miller insisted, is as apt a subject for tragedy as any of the grand heroes of history. Sipho’s daughter, Thando, works for the TRC and must confront her expat cousin Mandisa, returning from ‘exile’ to bury her father, and her boiling, righteous anger at the TRC’s intentions to grant amnesty. As Thando points out: We, who stayed here. We who witnessed first-hand the police brutality. We who every Saturday buried hundreds of our young brothers and sisters shot by the police, dying in detention, dying because of orchestrated black-on-black violence, accept the TRC process ... If all those who suffered can forgive, then so can you. 13 This goes to the heart of the debate between reconciliation and retribution. At its core, this is a play about memory - about how identity is shaped by memory, how memory is created through history, and how our individualized memories of trauma and pain from the past create long-term wounds and scars that require treatment and healing in the present. Sipho’s narrative is important for its own sake, but it is also important because it reminds us of the human face of a

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__________________________________________________________________ most public history, in this case the legacy of apartheid. It also reminds us that the journey to reconciliation cannot be legislated - memories do not disappear because a government tells us to forget them. 5. Conclusion The complex interweaving of truth, history, memory, and identity is the frame within which the TRC’s litanies create new narratives for South African theatre and literature in general. Through the access to unspoken histories we are afforded the opportunity to free ourselves from the shackles of this history - not to forget it, but to process it and direct our energies to making new histories out of the old. However, what is critical in aiming for national unification and reconciliation is that we do not forget the individual narratives. The temptation to subscribe to a new hegemonic imperative that denies space for conflicting or oppositional points of view or attitudes is strong, especially given the powerful motivation of building a new country. We must resist that temptation by embracing the very contradictions and contestations that are inherent in our new country’s birth. Only by so doing can we make that new county in a new image that owns and recognizes its past, but is not trapped and enshrined in it. As Antjie Krog so poignantly writes, on the personal release contingent upon the creation of awareness: For the first time in months - I breathe. The absolution one has given up on, the hope for a catharsis, the ideal of reconciliation, the dream of a powerful reparations policy …Maybe this is all that is important - that I and my child know [the names] Vlakplaas and [Joe] Mamasela. That we know what happened there. 14 Or, even more powerfully: ‘We tell stories not to die of life.’ 15

Notes 1

S. Graham, ‘The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 34(1), 2003, p. 11. 2 M. McMurtry, ‘For Richer, for Poorer: Reflections on Contemporary Theatrical Design in South Africa’, Unpublished paper, 2000, p. 22. 3 Cited in M. Sanders, ‘Truth, Telling, Questioning: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull, and Literature after Apartheid’, Transformation, Vol. 42, p. 76. 4 G. Homann, At this Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa, Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 2009, p. 9. 5 A. Krog, Country of My Skull, Random House, Johannesburg, 1998, p. 131.

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__________________________________________________________________ 6

J. Kani, Nothing but the Truth, Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 2002, p. viii. 7 J. Taylor, Ubu and the Truth Commission, University of Cape Town Press, Cape Town, 1998, p. ix. 8 ‘Jane Taylor’s Play recounts Truth Commission Narratives’, Emory Report, Vol. 51(11), 1998, Viewed on 21 A ugust 2008, http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_ REPORT/erarchive/1998/November/ernovember.0/. 9 Taylor, p. viii. 10 Ibid. 11 C. Clay, ‘Truth and Reconciliation: John Kani Tells a South African Story’, The Boston Phoenix, 2005, Viewed on 21 August 2008, http://www.bostonphoenix. com/boston/arts/theater/documents/04425353.asp. 12 Kani, p. 58. 13 Ibid., pp. 29-30. 14 Krog, p. 131. 15 Ibid., p. 48.

Bibliography Clay, C., ‘Truth and Reconciliation: John Kani Tells a South African Story’. The Boston Phoenix. 2005, Viewed on 21 August 2008, http://www.bostonphoenix. com/boston/arts/theater/documents/04425353.asp. Graham, S., ‘The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature’. Research in African Literatures. Vol. 34(1), 2003, pp. 11-30. Homann, G. (ed), At This Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 2009. ‘Jane Taylor’s Play Recounts Truth Commission Narratives’. Emory Report. Vol. 51(11), 1998, Viewed on 21 A ugust 2008, http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_ REPORT/erarchive/1998/November/ernovember.0/. Kani, J., Nothing but the Truth. W itwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 2003 Krog, A., Country of My Skull. Random House, Johannesburg, 1998. McMurtry, M., ‘For Richer, for Poorer: Reflections on Contemporary Theatrical Design in South Africa’. Unpublished paper, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________ Sanders, M., ‘Truth, Telling, Questioning: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull and Literature after Apartheid’. Transformation. Vol. 42, 2000, pp. 73-91. Taylor, J., Ubu and the Truth Commission. University of Cape Town Press, Cape Town, 1998. Tamar Meskin has been a lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal since 1995. H er undergraduate studies were conducted at the University of Natal (Durban) where she graduated cum laude. Awarded the Emma Smith Overseas Scholarship, she then went on to complete her MFA in Acting at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since returning to South Africa, she has directed over 30 pr oductions, many of which have been nominated for awards. S he has co-written productions and also performs when she can. Her primary research areas are directing, acting, directing, writing and multi/intercultural performance practices. She is currently pursuing doctoral research around performance making and pedagogy. Tanya van der Walt lectures in Drama Studies at Durban University of Technology, specializing in the training of performers and directors in theatre. Her undergraduate studies were conducted at the University of Natal (Durban) and she holds an MA in Drama from Rhodes University. Her career in theatre has included such diverse activities as stage management, lighting design, arts administration, marketing/publicity, acting, directing, writing and teaching. She also has extensive experience in formulating and facilitating Theatre-in-Education projects. H er primary research interests are in the areas of directing, acting, drama- and theatrein-education, and she is currently pursuing doctoral research using self-study methodologies to investigate collaborative enquiry through performance pedagogy.

PART 2 Literary Traumas

‘He looks at me as if I were a dog:’ Representations of Shame and Trauma in the Fiction of Jean Rhys Jack Dawson Abstract Trauma and shame profoundly haunt the fiction of Jean Rhys, 1 yet little scholarship exists which addresses the significance of the role of shame, and its links to trauma, within her work. This chapter will concern itself with Jean Rhys’s fourth novel, Good Morning, Midnight, published in 1939, and will focus particularly on one technique Rhys uses to represent shame, that of ocular imagery. Visual dynamics and taboos on looking are often extended to implicate the reader in the intersubjective relation of shaming, and are intricately and intimately woven into the texture of trauma. Rhys’s work demands participatory reading and, as readers, we are often implicated in the shaming reification of protagonists, as our only entrance into their world is often by watching, which may evoke uncomfortable voyeuristic feelings in the reader; we conspire in the reification of her protagonists as we watch the narrator watching the protagonist watching others watching them, which can potentially flood the reader with affect. Mary Ayers notes that shame is a co ntagious affect, stinging the observer with the sheer visceral power of exposure. While M. Jacoby argues that the historically rare discussion on this subject could be because shame shows its most shameful side precisely when it is laid bare, so that whoever takes on the task of exposing it becomes vulnerable to its sting. And there is an implied hurt attached to the word ‘sting.’ This chapter will seek to address the following issues within the text: the multi-layered, narrative approaches to trauma and their significant relationship with affect, specifically shame; shame linked to visual dynamics and ocular imagery - to feelings of exposure and invasion, from self to other, from text to reader; literature and an exploration of emotion/affect and expression. Key Words: Shame, trauma, visual dynamics, ocular imagery, eyes, Jean Rhys, affect. ***** ‘To the person who suffers shame, the world is full of eyes, crowded with things and people that can see. Bewitching eyes watch every movement and moment of self.’ 2 ‘The core of agony in shame is this element of exposure.’ 3 ‘I was the dirtiest bitch he had ever struck.’ 4

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__________________________________________________________________ Shame saturates Rhys’s fiction. And it is in the refusal of control, dignity, power and self-possession to her female subject that Rhys’s novels are so radical. Rhys eschews the conventional forms of narrative authority, which are linked to the kinds of patriarchal authority that the oft written about ‘they’ in her novels embody. Jean Rhys writes from the edge, from the other side of confidence, from the other side of respectability. The Rhys protagonist dramatises ‘shame vulnerability’ described by Wurmser as a ‘sensitivity to, and readiness for, shame – and ‘shame anxiety,’ which is evoked by the imminent danger of unexpected exposure, humiliation, and rejection.’ 5 Sasha Jansen, the narrator-protagonist of Jean Rhys’s fourth novel lives a world of ‘utter darkness.’ 6 We meet her at a time in her life when she is ‘[q]uite alone,’ a place of alienation where she feels there is ‘[n]o voice, no touch, no hand’ available to her; 7 she has reached ‘an impasse.’ 8 Shame is the affect of indignity, of defeat, of transgression, and of alienation. And with Sasha, Rhys appears to be showing us all the traits that are deemed shameful in women; Sasha is a woman who drinks too much: ‘[i]t was then that I had the bright idea of drinking myself to death;’ 9 a woman who becomes a v irtual prostitute: ‘[t]here was a monsieur, but the monsieur has gone. There was more than one monsieur, but they have all gone. What an assortment! One of every kind.’ 10 And, for Sasha, perhaps the worst sin of all, a woman ageing: she feels ‘sad ... sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad.’ 11 Sasha’s life is revealed slowly to us: ‘[i]t wasn’t one thing. It took years. It was a slow process’ to reach her ‘impasse.’ 12 Her intimate journey is exposed to us by the fixed, focalised, first person narrative, that holds a confessional quality, which may create feelings of tension in the reader. We journey alongside her, where her innermost feelings become an exhibition as we witness her alienation from self: ‘[w]hat are you? I am an instrument, something to be made use of.’ 13 To witness shame is also perhaps to feel it for ourselves and shame is an acutely painful feeling – a feeling of a small, inner death; thereby Rhys destabilises the reader by exposing Sasha – and the reader – to shaming scenes. This destabilising effect is enhanced further by Rhys’s choice of using alcohol – one of Sasha’s vices. Its effects are intimately woven with the dynamics of trauma and shame and serve to heighten the dramatic effects on both the narrative structure and Sasha’s disintegrating relationship with self. The temporal shifts in narrative mimic a drunken swagger as we are taken ‘[b]ack, back, back,’ 14 and like Sasha, we as readers may feel disoriented for a moment and do not ‘know whether it’s yesterday, today or tomorrow.’ 15 At some level, Sasha is aware of her own fragmentation: It’s when I am quite sane like this, when I have had a couple of extra drinks and am quite sane … I’m a bit of an automaton, but sane surely – dry, cold and sane. Now I have forgotten about the

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__________________________________________________________________ dark streets, dark rivers, the pain, the struggle and the drowning. 16 There is a brutal, relentless truth in how she articulates the pain and suffering of being in this degraded state; it is a state of survival, rather than a state of living: ‘[f]rom your heaven you have to go back to hell. When you are dead to the world, the world often rescues you, if only to make a figure of fun out of you;’ 17 ‘[s]he is past shame, detached, grim.’ 18 Alcohol is the watery cloak that serves to hide her feelings of shame, yet paradoxically it exposes her to shaming scenes. The waiter looks at her ‘in a sly, amused way,’ and the waitress ‘says nothing … [b]ut she says it a ll.’ 19 Sasha continually lives in a s tate of anxiety, where she will ‘blush at a l ook, cry at a word;’ 20 where she feels, ‘[w]ith a hundred francs they buy the unlimited right to scorn you. It’s cheap.’ 21 The polarities of being hidden and exposed are explored as Sasha misuses barbiturates, which enable her to sleep and hide in hotel rooms – rooms which should be womb-like, but are tomb-like – ‘I crept in and hid. The lid of the coffin shut down with a bang,’ and alcohol to help her forget in her waking moments. 22 How Sasha looks, how she appears to both herself and others is also related to her feelings of shame. Her scopophobic tendencies, ‘[r]un, run away from their eyes,’ 23 and ‘[d]on’t let him notice me, don’t let him look at me. Isn’t there something you can do so that nobody looks at you or sees you?’ are symptomatic of the humiliation and shame she feels. 24 And also in direct relation to the traumas she has suffered – the death of her child, the death of her marriage, and her alienation from family. Sasha Jansen lurches through the narrative in a highly sensitised state – ‘He looks at me with distaste. Plat du Jour - boiled eyes, served cold.’ 25 As Sasha’s story unfolds she remembers her first time living in Paris with her now estranged husband Enno; he had abandoned her after the death of their child and ‘it was after that’ she tells us she ‘began to go to pieces.’ 26 Enno’s rejection of her, tied to the death of her child, creates feelings of immense shame in Sasha. Enno told her: ‘You don’t know how to make love … you’re too passive, you’re lazy, you bore me … goodbye.’ 27 Sasha feels the shame of not being a good mother, a good lover, or a good wife. Yet at the beginning of her relationship with Enno, Sasha was not happy. It was then that she decided to change her name from Sophia to Sasha, because she thinks ‘it might change [her] luck’ – a failed attempt to escape herself, her true identity. 28 Feelings of shame are further linked to identity and the construction of self; Sasha tells us: ‘I have no pride – no pride, no name, no face, no country. I don’t belong anywhere.’ 29 She travels from hotel room to rented room, from London to Paris, and any fixed domestic space takes on the persona of ‘monsters [with] two

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__________________________________________________________________ lighted eyes at the top to sneer’ at her. 30 She has become alienated from any form of stability, both internally and in a physical space too. Sasha, in her waking moments, gets into the ‘habit of walking with [her] head down,’ 31 but she also walks ‘along with [her] head bent, very ashamed’ in her dream/nightmare moments too. 32 There is no escape from her feelings of shame – there is a deep incompleteness in her at the bottom of all the other shames, which is never sourced. Even as a child Sasha’s feelings of (innate?) shame are alluded to: ‘I’ve never been young. When I was young I was strained up, anxious.’ 33 So here an acknowledgement that she has never felt comfortable in her skin, and attempts to externally fix herself with clothes, alcohol and men is therefore doomed to failure: ‘[i]t is a black dress with wide sleeves embroidered in vivid colours … if I had been wearing it I should never have stammered or been stupid;’ 34 a hat, a new hair colour, ‘I had expected to think about this damned hair of mine without any let-up for days’ and immediately after it has been newly dyed, … ‘I must go and buy a hat this afternoon … I must get on with the transformation act.’ 35 All are futile attempts to give her the concrete proof she needs in order to know that she exists, except she desperately tries to change how she looks, because she has become ‘empty of everything.’ 36 Sasha acknowledges the futility of her position: Please, please, monsieur et madame, mister, misses and miss, I am trying so hard to be like you. I know I don't succeed, but look how hard I try … [e]very word I say has chains round its ankles. 37 Her feelings of shame, her need to be kept hidden behind a succession of men, new clothes and alcohol have manifested in feelings of futility, despair and chronic shame. When she borrows money from an old lover, he steals a kiss from her. She returns feeling: ‘I feel so awful. I feel so dirty. I want to have a bath. I want another dress. I want clean underclothes. I feel so awful. I feel so dirty.’ 38 No one thing, however, will change how she feels; the repetition of the words ‘I feel,’ ‘dirty,’ and ‘awful’ evoke images of ingrained shame – shame that cannot be scrubbed away in a bath, or hidden underneath new dresses, or clean underclothes. Wurmser argues that ‘at the core of shame, is the conviction of one’s unlovability because of an inherent sense that the self is ‘weak, dirty and defective.’’ 39 Ayers notes: In shame, we meet eyes and avoid eyes; the solitary, scrutinising eye of our inner selves or the collective eyes of the world that will bear witness to our state of self-worthlessness, impotence, undesirability, ugliness, incompetence, filth, or damage. 40

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__________________________________________________________________ Whilst in Paris Sasha meets Rene the gigolo, a man who makes her ‘feel natural and happy, just as if [she] were young – but really young.’ 41 She has the chance to feel passion, to come alive again. But she rejects him and in so doing, ultimately rejects herself too. She leaves Rene outside the hotel and does not invite him into her room, her self. She imagines Rene’s return to her room with the words: I have my arms around him … Now everything is in my arms on this dark landing – love, youth, spring, happiness, everything I thought I had lost … But a whisper … What do I expect to see? There is nobody on the landing – nothing. 42 There is nobody there, but Rene embodies every thing she has lost: ‘love, youth, spring, happiness.’ 43 As Sasha has imagined his return, her alienation is complete; the pain of ultimately rejecting the only source of human love open to her however fleetingly, because of her feelings of inadequacy and shame, become too much: ‘[t]his is the effort … under which the human brain cracks.’ 44 She brutalises his imagined lovemaking, in what is now her shamed, broken, corrupted mind: ‘I feel his hard knee between my knees. My mouth hurts, my breasts hurt, because it hurts, when you have been dead, to come alive.’ 45 Sasha returns to the foetal position for her birth into a shaming death and her dislocation from self becomes complete: I turn over on my side and huddle up, making myself as small as possible, my knees almost touching my chin. I cry in the way it hurts right down, that hurts your heart and your stomach. Who is this crying? The same one who laughed on the landing … this is me, this is myself who is crying. The other – how do I know who the other is. She is not me. 46 Throughout the narrative the figure of a man in a white dressing-gown appears; he occupies the room next door to Sasha in the Parisian hotel. It is through him that we may question our position as voyeurs to Sasha’s journey. When Sasha tells us that ‘[t]he truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it’s in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth,’ 47 we see that by exposing Sasha’s corrupted, traumatised, chemically-induced truth, Rhys also implicitly exposes the truth of a judging, harsh and shallow society – there is always a ‘they’ in Rhys’s fiction; a disembodied ‘they’ who are the judging ‘others,’ the producers of shame. If we are not vigilant as readers, we too may take on the persona/role of white dressing-gown man and become judging ‘others.’ His very function appears to be that disowned part in Sasha, the disowned projections we may have? Therefore, he does not exist outside of Sasha’s/our mind; a fictional hovering projection. He is always ‘[h]anging around … like the ghost of the landing [and] is as thin as a

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__________________________________________________________________ skeleton … with a peculiar expression, cringing, ingratiating, knowing.’ 48 Furthermore, as Sasha touches him, ‘[i]t’s like pushing a paper man, a ghost, something that doesn’t exist.’ 49 He is always encountered on the landing; a landing is a transitional space, a space that takes you from one place to another. White dressing-gown man gains access to Sasha’s embrace only after her rejection of Rene; inner doors that have remained closed are now opened up to this judging other – ‘and the dreams that you have, alone in an empty room, waiting for the door that will open’ – and Sasha lets him into her most private place, her bedroom, her self. 50 He is like a grotesque leering god-monster; ‘like a priest, the priest of some obscene, half-understood religion.’ 51 He is dressed in white (innocence, nothingness or judgement?) and finally envelops Sasha in a metaphorical death; a s piritual death of chronic, searing shame linked explicitly with sex. If he is Sasha’s judging other, a disowned projected part of self, is this final orgasmic ‘[y]es – yes – yes’ embrace of him a healing death; a spiritual death of shame that will result into one of rebirth? 52 Shame, unless realised, is corrosive and destroys, but once realised it forms a basis for rebirth; as Fernie notes, ‘[f]reedom from self is liberation into love … the idea of shame as transcendence’ may apply to Sasha’s journey also, a release from the impasse at which her journey opened. Shame is, however, a ‘spiritual fulcrum, poised between transcendence and oblivion, salvation and damnation.’ 53 If, as suggested, Rhys does link shame to the fall, to feelings of innate shame, does she then offer Sasha a release from original sin, to a place where Sasha can overcome her innate feelings of shame? Is Sasha’s acceptance her salvation, or her damnation? By exploring the lives of Jean Rhys’s petite femmes, there can be found a yearning, a d eep incompleteness at the bottom of all their other shames. This incompleteness – this search for a viable self – is not entirely socially determined. Their alienation is only partly the result of living in a patriarchal world. Rhys’s petite femmes are transformed, momentarily, by a new frock, a new man, a couple of glasses of wine. They cannot however escape themselves completely. Rhys is writing about a l ost truth, a l ost innocence; Rhys’s yearning is for a p relapsarian world. Rhys is writing about the lost perfection their lives have always fallen away from, and the return they long for and can only dream of. Sasha articulates a truth felt by all Jean Rhys’s petite femmes: ‘Since I was born, hasn’t every word I’ve said, every thought I’ve thought, everything I’ve done, been tied up, weighted, chained?’ (my emphasis). 54

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Notes 1

J. Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight, Penguin, London, 2000, p. 26. M. Ayers, Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis: The Eyes of Shame, Routledge, London and New York, 2008, p. 1. 3 Ibid., p. 1. 4 Rhys, op. cit., p. 119. 5 L. Wurmser, The Mask of Shame, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997, p. 49. 6 Rhys, op.cit., p. 145. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., p. 9. 9 Ibid., p. 37. 10 Ibid., p. 68. 11 Ibid., p. 39. 12 Ibid., p. 146. 13 Ibid., p. 50. 14 Ibid.., p. 50. 15 Ibid., p. 121. 16 Ibid., p. 10. 17 Ibid., p. 76. 18 Ibid., p. 19. 19 Ibid., p. 87. 20 Ibid., p. 26. 21 Ibid., p. 101. 22 Ibid., p. 37. 23 Ibid., p. 24. 24 Ibid., p. 17. 25 Ibid., p. 25. 26 Ibid., p. 119. 27 Ibid., p. 107. 28 Ibid., p. 11. 29 Ibid., p. 38. 30 Ibid., p. 28. 31 Ibid., p. 72. 32 Ibid., p. 12. 33 Ibid., p. 130. 34 Ibid., p. 25. 35 Ibid., p. 53. 36 Ibid., p. 48. 37 Ibid., p. 88. 38 Ibid., p. 101. 2

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Wurmser, op. cit., p. 93. Ayers, op. cit., p. 2. 41 Ibid., p. 130. 42 Ibid., p. 148. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., p. 157. 45 Ibid., p. 153. 46 Ibid., p. 154. 47 Ibid., p. 63. 48 Ibid., p. 13. 49 Ibid., p. 31. 50 Ibid., p. 83. 51 Ibid., p. 30. 52 Ibid., p. 159. 53 E. Fernie, Shame in Shakespeare, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 233. 54 Rhys, op. cit., p. 88. 40

Bibliography Adamson, J. and Clark, H. (eds), Scenes Of Shame: Psychoanalysis, Shame, and Writing. State University of New York, New York, 1999. Ayers, M., Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis: The Eyes of Shame. Routledge, London and New York, 2008. Fernie, E., Shame in Shakespeare. Routledge, London, 2002. Jacoby, M., ‘Shame: Its Archetypal Meaning and Its Neurotic Distortions’. Paper presented at the C. G. Jung Center, New York, April 1990. Moran, P., Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys and the Aesthetics Of Trauma. Palgrave, New York, 2007. Rhys, J., Good Morning, Midnight. Penguin, London, 2000. Wurmser L., The Mask of Shame. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997. Jack Dawson is a C ounsellor, Group Therapist and Lecturer. She specialises in working with adults and young people in crisis. She is undertaking PhD Doctoral

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__________________________________________________________________ studies at Bath Spa University, UK, researching the representation of Trauma and Shame in the works of Jean Rhys.

Enlisting Rage and Speaking Place: Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria Bridget Haylock Abstract Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006) explores embodied and indigenous subjectivity, presenting Australian society reeling from the genocidal trauma and subsequent rage at its foundations: consequences of colonialism. Carpentaria shows the progressive amplification of indigenous traumatic experience from the personal to intra-familial to societal, and illustrates many areas of indigenous people’s lives that trauma affects. Wright uses the attempted genocide and ensuing ongoing displacement of the peoples of her nation as a s ynecdoche for the experience of colonised people worldwide. Wright’s work is a ch ronicling of the fury of the occupied, emphasising the indigenous view that the land and people are one. The novel centres on the development of land, the result of continued colonisation, and how rage can be a mobilising force for action. In this chapter I will explore how, through the implicit use of the Bakhtian carnivalesque, Wright subverts social assumptions. I will also examine what radical ideas she presents for cultural and political debate in the light of Deborah Bird Rose’s thesis of an ethics for decolonisation. Wright projects and presents a world where the abject, traumatised, indigenous subject parodies would-be oppressors; in mirroring white society, she echoes Mary Douglas’ thesis that absolute dirt exists in the eye of the beholder. Through the deft use of Mudrooroo’s ‘maban reality’, the indigenous genre of Australian writing that privileges oral storytelling, Wright performs emergence from trauma for readers by finding the words, breaking the silence and speaking place. While Germaine Greer contends that colonialism was successful in destroying Aboriginal culture, leaving a self-destructive rage in its wake, this is an invader’s point of view; Wright’s Aboriginal man enacts agency and enlists rage to regain his land and dignity. Wright suggests that from enraged, abjective experience, empowerment and transformation is not only possible, but also essential. Key Words: Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, trauma, rage, land rights, abjection, parody, maban reality, emergence, belonging. ***** 1. Place of Trauma ‘You is in hell.’ 1 In this chapter I interrogate the tactics of opposition used by Alexis Wright in her much lauded novel Carpentaria, 2 which subverts and satirises the European

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__________________________________________________________________ invaders’ materialist worldview and their presumption of territorial rights. Wright lampoons the Australian society that reels from its foundational rage, a consequence of the colonial project, and chronicles indigenous subjectivity made dysfunctional by inherited historic and cultural trauma. Carpentaria shows an amplification of Australian indigenous traumatic experience from the personal to the intra-familial, to the societal and cultural, arising from the immense horror that for many the whole of their country is a vast traumascape. 3 As Tumarkin argues, the past ‘continues to inhabit and refashion the present,’ 4 the desecration of country made ‘wild’ a constant trigger, contributing to contemporary dysfunction. 5 Three interrelated definitions of trauma are relevant in the Australian context: intergenerational, historical and cultural. The traumatic affect of massacres, dispossession and forced removal of children, the Stolen Generations, has passed on to subsequent generations. Historical trauma and grief resulting from familial and social disruption, has manifested as destructive behaviours, become re-enacted in families, and carried forward as intergenerational trauma. Cultural trauma in indigenous Australia can be understood as the culmination of the historical and intergenerational traumatic process. It explains the detrimental effect of the crosscultural exchange with the British colonizers: loss of home, cultural memory and language, racism, discrimination, and denunciation of spirituality and denial of civil rights. Aboriginal connection to country is vital for physical, mental and spiritual health; in many places traditional cultural lineages have been compromised. Fallout from cultural trauma compounds as people deal with the reality of social devastation: poor physical and mental health outcomes, family break up, violent deaths in custody, homicide, suicide, and substance abuse. ‘The old gulf country men and women who took our besieged memories to the grave might just climb out of the mud and tell you the real story of what happened here.’ 6 By employing the heteroglossic, Wright has found a unique language through which to testify. As LaCapra argues, productive mourning must occur to enact healing, enabled through survivor testimony, and emphasises ‘the cultural expression of trauma as a means of understanding experience.’ 7 Bringing the many-storied past into the present becomes a moral imperative for reconciliation. 2. Enlisting Rage ‘But this was not Vaudeville. Wars were fought here. If you had your patch destroyed you’d be screaming too.’ 8

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__________________________________________________________________ My reading shows that the novel is structured by the mobilization of two different modes of textual production in conjunction: the maban and the carnivalesque; thus is the reader privy to the legacy of trauma and the fire of resistance, as Wright writes back to power and asserts belonging in a host(ile) culture. The narrative of Carpentaria is set around the town of Desperance, divided into Uptown, where the whitefellas live, and the Pricklebush, peripheral overcrowded camps, or ‘human dumping ground(s),’ where the Westside and Eastside mobs live in ‘trash humpies,’ amid ‘the muck of third-world poverty.’ 9 The Pricklebush mob live next to the town dump, using it as a resource to obtain goods. Many of the novel’s whitefella characters are grotesque: the thug Mayor Bruiser; the duplicitous policeman Truthful; the absent corporation, the owner of the Gurfurritt mine; and the fearful citizens of Uptown. Other characters are symbolic: Normal Phantom, nominal head of the Westside mob and the river people, his fathers’ fathers were there ‘from before time began;’ his wife Angel Day and activist son, Will; archrival Joseph Midnight - head of the opportunistic Eastside mob, and daughter Hope; evangelist Mozzie Fishman and his convoy of bush mechanics following the Rainbow Serpent’s dreaming tracks in their ramshackle cars; and Elias, the saviour. Although the mining activity provides affluence, the truth is grim. In the Pricklebush, the people acknowledge that the mine has appropriated their land, the Uptown people, who Wright calls barbaric, reject the traditional owners, saying, ‘The Aboriginal was really not part of the town at all.’ 10 They go so far as to neglect to mention indigenous people past and present in ‘the official version of the region’s history. There was no tangible evidence of their existence.’ 11 Perhaps they exist only as phantoms. Many towns across Australia cite their origins somewhere in the nineteenth century, the founders blind to the fact that the land was already storied. As Rose says ‘There is no place without a history; there is no place that has not been imaginatively grasped through song, dance and design, no place where traditional owners cannot see the imprint of sacred creation.’ 12 But Wright’s Uncle Micky has a co llection of bullet cartridges, maps of massacre sites, names of witnesses, verbal statements on cassette and other evidence that he collects in preparation for the ‘war trials he predicted would happen one day.’ 13 Will and Hope’s relationship, enacted off the page, offers a chance, with their son, Bala and Normal as the elder, that the continuity of culture is ensured, and that healthy, hopeful and creative relationships are possible. Eventually, together with nature and indigenous ingenuity, the mine is destroyed, and the town evacuated and washed away into the sea. Wright is one of Marcia Langton’s ‘army of respectable, reliable, properly qualified wordsmiths who write about this corpse that is still lying in the middle of the room.’ 14 Wright says ‘I want the truth to be told, our truths, so, first and foremost, I hold my pen for the suffering in our communities.’ 15 She joins Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Mudrooroo Nyoongah, Kim Scott and many others in the

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘long history of Indigenous Australian textual production,’ 16 where the indigenous subject writes themselves in and asserts their belonging to place, in what Barbara Harlow terms ‘resistance literature.’ 17 Suzette Henke argues that narratives from marginalised subjects often challenge dominant points of view, and bell hooks agrees that writing from this cohort is never ‘solely an expression of creative power, it is an act of resistance, a political gesture that challenges the politics of domination that would render us nameless and voiceless.’ 18 As Wright expresses, ‘Those of the Pricklebush mob who had taken up the offer to attend the meeting listened, were stunned again by how they had been rendered invisible.’ 19 Successive governments continue to ignore Aboriginal people and, as Rose asserts, the fact of ongoing ancestral belonging and ownership of land. 3. The Violence of the Carnivalesque ‘Those little boys were never told why they were in jail.’ 20 Wright shows settler and Aboriginal societies as entangled, each element of the story nominally represented by a d ifferent narratological device: settler by the ‘richly complex and diverse’ heteroglossic, dialogistic and abject-grotesque realism of the carnivalesque, of which Wright parodies the worst excesses; and Aboriginal society by maban reality, with the vivid spiritual world animate. 21 What is accomplished in the merging speaks to Langton’s notions of cultural ideas, ‘when artistic traditions become engaged across cultural borders, the results can be complex social phenomena. Not easily perceived or understood, especially in the colonial and post-colonial worlds.’ 22 Wright’s skilled perception confirms Mary Douglas’ idea that absolute dirt exists in the eye of the beholder: satire shows the conqueror an uncanny suppressed image. Bakhtin’s carnivalesque is ‘most successful’ when applied to literatures ‘produced in a colonial or neo-colonial context where the political difference between the dominant and subordinate culture is particularly charged,’ for it can offer a cogent analysis that is able to diffuse some of the overt emotionality of the argument and instead use that energy to subvert dominant ideas. 23 In the carnivalesque, the tangibility of food, excrement and the body is employed where the body represents the people, ‘continually growing and renewed.’ 24 Wright presents the human body as virile, broken or phantasmagorical, dead, alive, golden-skinned, dark-skinned. Corporeality becomes a site of contestation from which to interrogate and reflect back to the invaders, with ‘faces like dried pears.’ 25 Laughter transmutes the fear of dominant and violent authority. Bakhtin writes that laughter creates victory over divine and human power, ‘hell and all that is more terrifying than the earth itself.’ 26 The defeat of fear is presented in a wry and bizarre form, symbols of power are reversed, death is represented comically, and

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__________________________________________________________________ the terrifying becomes monstrous. However, in defeat there is rebirth as for Wright renewal occurs through radical change. The finale was majestical. Dearo, dearie, the explosion was holy in its glory. All of it was gone. The whole mine, pride of the banana state, ended up looking like a big panorama of burnt chop suey. On a grand scale of course because our country is a very big story. Wonderment was the ear on the ground listening to the great murmuring ancestor, and the earth shook the bodies of those ones lying flat on the ground in the hills. Then, it was dark with smoke and dust and everything turned silent for a long time. 27 This violent ending of the mine might read as transgressive, alternatively, as offering a view of the depth of indigenous rage and resistance. Carpentaria is a world ‘of heteroglot exuberance. . . where all is mixed, hybrid, ritually degraded and defiled.’ 28 Bakhtin argues that the laughter of the carnivalesque is the continuing social consciousness of the people, which unveils the truth about the power and mystery of the world or in Wright’s words: ‘If you ever want to find out anything in your vicinity, you have to talk to the mad people.’ 29 The carnivalesque perspective assumes the hierarchy is maintained by the ‘most powerful socio-economic groups existing at the centre of cultural power,’ and provides a Western, androcentric viewpoint. 30 For Bakhtin the carnival ‘is both a popular utopian vision of the world seen from below, and a festive critique, through the inversion of hierarchy, of the ‘high culture.’ 31 One of the reasons that Wright employs this technique is that for many indigenous people, daily life is an awful experience of traumatic repetition, the carnivalesque, in offering ‘the temporary liberation from the prevailing truth of the established order,’ provides a survival strategy.’ 32 4. Maban Time ‘The spirits would never let you forget the past’

33

Wright employs Mudrooroo’s ‘maban reality,’ which expresses Australian indigenous worldviews, in oral storytelling and dramatic genres. 34 A Maban is a Clever Man or Woman, a Shaman, holder of knowledge and culture, a person able to interact and know the world in a way very different from the rational mode. The scientific ‘natural’ worldview rose to dominance in Australia with the invasion of indigenous lands; the colonial project is ‘the imposition of a singular European Reality’ usurping local maban realities, and ‘displaces the maban or shaman from the world and the magic implicit in the world.’ 35 Thus are indigenous peoples

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__________________________________________________________________ silenced, and their reality and thought censored. Wright calls this ‘the massacre of voices,’ which she resurrects using polyphony. 36 Mudrooroo believes that indigenous texts ‘should intervene politically and socially into the dominant ideology; but in employing traditional story content and structure, they ought also be enjoyable. 37 In using the maban reality genre in Carpentaria, Wright’s story encompasses the supernatural and the natural, and shows something of the complex relationship that indigenous people have to living two-way lives, that is attempting to honour their traditional culture, while compelled to interact with the Western way. As Wright describes, ‘the way people tell stories: they will bring all the stories of the past, from ancient times and to the stories of the last two hundred years and also stories happening now. . . all times are important.’ 38 In a maban reality, time is not linear, and various schemas may overlap. For example, Carpentaria opens with the first chapter called ‘From time immemorial’ describing monumental time, wherein the serpent came down, those ‘billions of years ago.’ 39 Wright then shifts into cyclical time, writing about ‘days doing nothing,’ 40 seasonal flows, and back to ‘down through the ages since time began.’ 41 And ‘Once upon a time, not even so long ago,’ 42 offers a beginning at once familiar to readers, which also allows for the entrance of fantastical elements. The using of temporal discontinuity and nonlinear narrative structures performs the traumatic experience of displacement and attempted genocide. Carpentaria is woven with maban imagery: devils and spirits are found in dreams, daylight and at night; Normal and Angel’s house is built on the nest of a snake spirit; the sea woman is a death angel who lures men to their doom; Lloydie, the barman, worships a mermaid locked in the wooden bar at the pub, a full-grown woman ‘moving like a trapped fish.’ 43 Norm is chased by phantoms; the giant in the cloak or the giant sugarbag man of the skies brings the storms and hazes of madness that Uptown calls the silly season; ‘He knew instantly the town was evacuating. The Bureau of Meteorology had called and translated the message from the ancestral spirits.’ 44 What Wright does is embed the complexity and wonder of the indigenous worldview, where trees whisper and birds talk, into the narrative. She likens her writing to looking at the ancestral tracks of traditional country, where ‘all stories, all realities from the ancient to the new’ combine into one. ‘Our stories are like the magic which feeds the soul and the heart, which sometimes flies above the bitterness of pure logic and rational thought and soars like an eagle.’ 45 Norm Phantom keeps ‘a library chock-a-block full of stories of the old country stored in his head’ which he trades with others. 46 Wright is trading stories with her readers in return for understanding, which might generate constructive action.

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__________________________________________________________________ 5. Hope of Belonging ‘Luckily, the ghosts in the memories of the old folk were listening, and said anyone can find hope in the stories: the big stories and the little ones in between.’ 47 Germaine Greer writes in On Rage that the colonial project has been successful in destroying Aboriginal culture, leaving a self-destructive rage in its wake. She suggests that Aboriginal man needs a political structure through which to focus his rage and organise resistance. 48 It is Wright who actually shows indigenous men from a hopeless position taking action. Her Aboriginal man enacts agency and enlists rage in concert with nature to regain his land and his dignity, although they might have ‘that same old defeated look, two centuries full of it . . . they had a taste of winning so they projected their own sheer willpower . . . believing magic can happen even to poor buggers like themselves.’ 49 It is the white men who have no agency, who fall prey to their own misdirected deeds, casual atrocities, mismanagement and ignorance of the land. It is the indigenous connection with the land that gives the people the strength to live their cultural law, to follow the Rainbow Serpent dreaming tracks, to go to sea with the stars and wind as guiding forces, to welcome the cyclone to blow everything away and create afresh. Rose cites Dorota Glowacka in writing that ‘one must continue as if there were hope because to do so is still to refuse violence,’ thus allowing humanity a chance to honour those gone before. 50 It is the indigenous woman who suggests that from enraged, abjective experience, empowerment and transformation are possible, even essential. And then you can go home. It is from the land that Wright draws strength, ‘The river was flowing with so much force I felt it would never stop, and it would keep on flowing, just as it had flowed by generations of my ancestors, just as its waters would slip by here forever. It was like an animal, very much alive, not destroyed, that was stronger than all of us.’ 51

Notes 1

A. Wright, Carpentaria, The Giramondo Publishing Company, Artarmon, 2006, p. 60. 2 Published in 2006, and the winner of five Australian national literary awards in 2007: The Miles Franklin Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, the Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction, the Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction, and the Australian Book Industry Awards Literary Fiction Book of the Year.

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Maria Tumarkin chooses sites for the ‘legacies of violence, suffering and loss’ that have transpired there, and names them ‘traumascapes.’ M. Tumarkin, Traumascapes, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2005, p. 12. 4 Ibid., p. 12. 5 Deborah Bird Rose writes that country previously cared for in a traditional way but now overrun and destroyed by cattle and white man, is described as ‘wild country’. 6 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 11. 7 J. Bennett and R. Kennedy (eds), World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global Time, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002, p. 3. 8 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 11. 9 Ibid., p. 6. 10 Ibid., p. 6. 11 Ibid., p. 10. 12 D.B. Rose and W. McCarthy (foreword), Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness, Australian Heritage Commission, 1996 13 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 11. 14 M. Langton, ‘Marcia Langton Responds to Alexis Wright’s Breaking Taboos’, Australian Humanities Review, Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). 28 February 2011, http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/emuse/ taboos/langton2.html. 15 A. Wright, ‘Breaking Taboos’, Australian Humanities Review, Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL), September 1998, 28 February 2011. http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/September-1998/wright.html. 16 M. Grossman, ‘When They Write what We Read: Unsettling Indigenous Australian Life-Writing,’ Australian Humanities Review, Iss. 39-40, September, 2006. 17 M. Grossman (ed), Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003, p. 2. 18 Grossman, Blacklines, p. 2. 19 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 36. 20 Ibid., p. 320. 21 D.B. Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004, p. 28. 22 M. Langton, ‘Introduction: Culture Wars’, Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians, M. Grossman (ed), Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003, p. 2. 23 P. Stallybrass and A. White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1986, p. 11.

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M. Bakhtin, The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, and Voloshinov, P. Morris (ed), E. Arnold. London, New York. 1994, p. 205. 25 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 66. 26 Bakhtin, p. 204. 27 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 411. 28 Stallybrass and White, p. 8. 29 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 356. 30 Stallybrass and White, p. 4. 31 Ibid., p. 7. 32 M. Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1986, p. 109. 33 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 26. 34 Mudrooroo Narogin Nyoongah, formerly known as Colin Johnson; b. 1939, is a part-Aboriginal poet, novelist and playwright from Western Australia. His perceived right to represent Indigenous Australia was contested in the 1990s. 35 Mudrooroo, ‘Maban Reality and Shape-Shifting: Strategies to Sing the Past Our Way’, Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies, Vol. 10, Iss. 2, 1996, p. 1. 36 A. Wright, ‘Politics of Writing’, Southerly, Vol. 62, Summer 2002, p. 10. 37 Mudrooroo, 1996. 38 Kerry O’Brien, Hecate, 2007, p. 216. 39 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 1. 40 Ibid., p. 2. 41 Ibid., p. 3. 42 Ibid., p. 43. 43 Ibid., p. 472. 44 Ibid., p. 466. 45 Wright, Southerly, p. 10. 46 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 246. 47 Ibid., p. 12. 48 ATSIC, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission existed from 1990-2005. There is currently no organisation dedicated to indigenous political representation. 49 Wright, Carpentaria, p. 411. 50 Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, p. 32. 51 A. Wright, ‘On Writing Carpentaria’, HEAT 13, The Giramondo Publishing Company, Artarmon, 2007, p. 79.

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Bibliography Books Bakhtin, M.M., The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev and Voloshinov. E. Arnold, London, New York, 1994. Bakhtin, M.M., Speech Genres and other Late Essays. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1986. Bennett, J. and Kennedy, R. (eds), World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global Time. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002. Grossman, M. (ed), Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003. Rose, D.B. and McCarthy, W. (foreword), Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission, 1996. Rose, D.B., Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004. Stallybrass, P. and White, A., The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1986. Tumarkin, M., Traumascapes. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2005. Wright, A., Carpentaria. The Giramondo Publishing Company, Artarmon, 2006. Articles Grossman, M., ‘When They Write What We Read: Unsettling Indigenous Australian Life-Writing’. Australian Humanities Review. Iss. 39-40, September, 2006. Mudrooroo, ‘Maban Reality and Shape-Shifting: Strategies to Sing the Past Our Way’. Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies. Vol. 10, Iss. 2, 1996, p. 1. O’Brien, K., ‘Alexis Wright Interview’. Hecate. Vol. 33, No. 1, 2007, pp. 215-219.

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__________________________________________________________________ Wright, A., ‘On Writing Carpentaria’. HEAT 13. The Giramondo Publishing Company, Artarmon, 2007. Wright, A., ‘Politics of Writing’. Southerly. Vol. 62, Iss. 2, Summer 2002, p. 10. Internet Langton, M., ‘Marcia Langton Responds to Alexis Wright’s Breaking Taboos’. Australian Humanities Review. Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/emuse/taboos/langton2.html. Wright, A., ‘Breaking Taboos’. Australian Humanities Review. Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). http://www.australianhumanitiesreview. org/archive/Issue-September-1998/wright.html. Bridget Haylock is a PhD of Creative Writing Candidate at the University of Melbourne. Her current research and writing interests are focussed on the expression of trauma and creative emergence in contemporary Australian femaleauthored texts.

Crane meets Cranium: The Crisis of Representing Trauma in Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker Carolin Alice Hofmann Abstract This chapter examines referentiality in trauma fiction, drawing on Geoffrey Hartman’s claim of two forms of traumatic knowledge that correspond to figurative and to literal aspects in the narration of trauma. Specifically, it looks at the textual dynamics of metaphorisation and literalisation in Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker, a novel about a young man who suffers from brain damage after a truck accident. The chapter identifies both of these narrative strategies within one signifier in the book: the cranes. Key Words: Trauma representation, The Echo Maker, metaphorisation, literalisation, referentiality, postmodern fiction. ***** 1. Introduction Richard Powers’ 2006 novel The Echo Maker reflects a crisis of representation typical of the narration of trauma. This crisis is caused by the impossibility of representing the traumatic experience in spite of - or even because of - the simultaneous, uncontrollable intrusion of traumatic memory. Addressing this paradox, many scholars have commented on trauma as an inaccessible, ultimately unrepresentable event. 1 There is, at the same time, a co nsensus on the imperative need for testimony and narrativisation for dealing with the traumatic experience. Moreover, accepting trauma as unrepresentable bears a d anger of rendering the trauma ‘sacred,’ and of thereby attenuating the actual political implications of the suffering, violence, or oppression these stories - both fictional works and accounts of lived experience - engage. 2 While poststructuralism claims that language fails to testify to trauma as the referent is endlessly deferred, uncontrollable, and inaccessible, we understand linguistic and textual representations to at least work against this impasse. Thus, the postmodern crisis of representation, the idea of an infinite deferral of meaning, is complicated by the narration of trauma as it heavily relies on referentiality. In a first step, I will briefly map out how a crisis of representation in postmodern fiction correlates to an interplay of figuration and immediacy in trauma narratives. I argue that the representational dilemma, which is at the heart of trauma narration, manifests on the stylistic level of the text: in the antithetic dynamics of metaphorisation and literalisation. In particular, my analysis draws on Geoffrey Hartman’s differentiation between figurative and literal knowledge of trauma. As trauma fiction reflects the interaction of these two types of trauma

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__________________________________________________________________ knowledge on the stylistic level, it mirrors the referential problem of postmodern fiction. In my analysis of Powers’s novel, I read the cranes as the signifier of both a symbolic deferral on the one hand, and an intrusion in the form of the referent, on the other. Thus tracing moments in which referentiality is negotiated, I elaborate on how the need for, and impossibility of, a representation of trauma becomes visible as the central image of the novel, the cranes, oscillates between metaphorical and literal use. 2. Representation through Metaphorisation and Literalisation In his frequently cited essay ‘On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies,’ Geoffrey Hartman differentiates two forms of traumatic knowledge that are seminal to my analysis of the textual strategies in Powers’s novel: The theory holds that the knowledge of trauma, or the knowledge which comes from that source, is composed of two contradictory elements. One is the traumatic event, registered rather than experienced. It seems to have bypassed perception and consciousness, and falls directly into the psyche. The other is a kind of memory of the event, in the form of a perpetual troping of it by the bypassed or severely split (dissociated) psyche. On the level of poetics, literal and figurative may correspond to these two types of cognition. 3 A brief survey of the role of symbolism/figuration and of literalisation in recent conceptualisation of trauma fiction reflects the productivity of Hartman’s observation. Assuming that trauma can neither be remembered nor represented like ordinary experience can, a text may engage figurative expressions, such as metaphors and symbols, in order to talk about a traumatic event. Hartman’s ‘perpetual troping,’ a form of remembering the trauma, utilises the suggestive power of metaphorical language. Etymologically, the word trope exceeds its generalised meaning as a figure of speech: meaning ‘change,’ ‘shift,’ or ‘turn’ in Greek, it insinuates notions of displacement and circulation. Accordingly, words can be considered as circling the traumatic event, trying to get at its core, but inevitably failing due to the incomprehensibility of trauma. Scholarship on trauma literature considers figurative language able to grasp that which lies outside ordinary experience. For instance, Anne Whitehead’s Trauma Fiction stresses the role of ‘new modes of referentiality, which work by means of figuration and indirection,’ 4 and Rosemary Winslow argues in ‘Troping Trauma,’ that ‘the trauma world is ... made through a metaphoric process.’ 5 In Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction, Laurie Vickroy states that the narrative power of symbolisation lies in the accessibility it creates as ‘an audience needs assistance in translating unfamiliar experience in

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__________________________________________________________________ order to empathise with it.’ 6 Ronald Granofsky’s The Trauma Novel shows similar interest in the relationship of text and reader, and understands symbolisation as a process of ‘distance and selection,’ that allows for a ‘safe confrontation with the traumatic experience.’ 7 Overall, metaphors and symbols are multilayered, preclude a definitive meaning, and can insinuate a futile re-turn to the trauma’s origin, thereby enabling an encounter with the ungraspable trauma, which in turn suggests a potential understanding on the part of the reader. However, the openness of figurative language is problematic. Since the subject of trauma narrative pertains the intrusion of the Lacanian Real, and is thus an essentially definitive process, its representation appears to forestall indecisive interpretations. There is, therefore, an inherent contradiction in the representation of trauma through imagery, metaphors, or symbols. In literary text, this ambivalence of figurative language shows, for instance, in the ‘multidimensional symbol,’ namely over-determined, obscure metaphors in fictional texts that can function as signs of the victim’s obsession with the trauma. 8 The theory furthermore stresses that traumatic material reappears directly, irritatingly, and uncalled for. While symbolisation endlessly defers meaning, manifestations of the trauma - such as symptoms associated with PTSD - pierce through the metaphorical/the Lacanian Symbolic. Remnants of the trauma intrude in the form of an immediate exposure which throws one back in time, into the original traumatic event. As such, a traumatic experience entails an unprocessed, literal reexposure to the referent, and ‘the story of trauma,’ - its narrativisation - ‘is inescapably bound to a referential return.’ 9 Of the trauma scholars who emphasise the significance of referentiality in trauma fiction, Jane Elliott and Laura Di Prete highlight the narrative strategy of literalisation in contemporary trauma literature. In ‘The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction,’ Elliott argues that in these ‘dramas of immediacy … the reader is privy to the narrowing of a gap that is both physical and representational: from over there to over here, from image or fiction to something closer to reality, from dead sign to living presence.’ 10 Other opponents of figuration are instances of corporeal manifestations. For example, Di Prete, referencing Freud’s term for unassimilable psychic fragments in the title of her 2006 Foreign Bodies, reads the body as ‘the central sign [and a] site of a paradox: a loss made visible through a presence.’ 11 Overall, the crisis of representation inherent in the narration of traumatic experience makes it an attractive arena for trauma fiction. Proceeding from Hartman’s claim, I argue that beyond the mere dualism or coexistence of literal and symbolic representation, trauma fiction often relies on the interplay of these narrative strategies, which leaves an unsatisfying, unsettling residue of neither/nor; an incommensurable overlap and a resistance of belonging to either category. In Powers’s The Echo Maker, this overlap is visible in the signifier of the cranes. 12

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. Cranes as Metaphors Metaphorical dimensions of the cranes serve as a means of discussing psychological and neurological aspects of trauma outside the novel’s distinctly medical discourse. Additional to their meaning as real birds on the level of plot, their figurative use serves to negotiate the protagonist’s trauma and recovery. The cranes feature as signifiers of Mark’s trauma in the perpetual troping of his accident, and in their ambiguous connection to his healing process. Mark’s memories compulsively circle back to the night of his accident, blending the neardeath experience with images of birds. This recurring evocation of cranes corresponds to Hartman’s ‘perpetual troping:’ figurative language to render the ineffable. Particularly in the passages of free associations focalised through the coma patient, the struggle to survive and break through the surface of consciousness takes the form of bird imagery: A flock of birds, each one burning. Stars swoop down to bullets. Hot red specks take flesh, nest there, a body part, part body ... Face forcing up into soundless scream. White column, lit in a river of light. Then pure terror, pealing into air, flipping and falling, anything but hit target. One sound gets not a word but still says: come. Come with. Try death. At last only water. Flat water spreading to its level. Water that is nothing but into nothing falls. 13 Unfiltered images of the traumatic event mix in a way that creates a conflation of cranes, accident and the temptation of death. Later, seeking to understand the events of the night of his mysterious accident and confronted with the ‘incomprehensibility of survival,’ 14 he revisits the image, and links the ‘column of white’ to an otherworldly presence: ‘‘A ghost or something. Just floating up, things flying. Then gone ... some kind of guiding spirit in the road, and I tried to kill it.’’ 15 Thus, as Mark struggles to solve the riddle and work through his traumatic experience, he ties a s urreal interference to the event. Imagining a witness to the trauma - magical or otherwise - enables the explanation of the inexplicable, allowing for a r eflection and almost an integration of the event. However, the cranes are ambiguous observers. The idea of being watched by birds reappears now and then in a rather unsettling way: as part of the conspiracy he suspects. 16 Mark is sure that the cranes are directly connected to the accident. Although they are the witnesses through which he seeks to ‘solve the riddle’ of his survival - a phrase he repeats throughout the novel - their presence at the accident makes them suspicious. At one point he calls them ‘animal spies,’ and incorporates them into his paranoia from then on. 17

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Cranes as the Return of the Referent In The Echo Maker, moments of direct representation undermine the novel’s utilisation of the cranes as trauma symbols: these intrusive gestures work against the metaphorical and signal a return of the referent. This phenomenon is particularly visible in the literal involvement of the birds in the protagonist’s memory and understanding of the trauma. The cranes appear as the return of the referent in moments of corporeal manifestation, particularly in the night of Mark’s accident and his recovery. Remarkably, not only the characters are confronted with materialised intrusion of birds: the effect is not limited to the fictional world of the novel. Avian occurrences irritate the cranes’ symbolic dimension at several points, where the text describes recovering Mark not only as a b ird-like, but as a literally avian creature, without providing contextualisation or commentary for the reader. For example, he is described as lying in a hospital bed, engaged in a conversation, when the text says, ‘[he was] licking the canary feathers off his lips.’ 18 Here, the novel emphasises the metaphorical dimension of the cranes to such an extent, that the symbolism collapses into its literal opposite. The productivity of this literalisation is enhanced by Mark’s paranoid fear that bird matter was transplanted into his brain during the coma. The supposed incorporation of foreign material ‘‘He’s under the impression that he might be part bird.’’ - then, can be read as an example of how the psyche makes sense of the intrusion of trauma material into the consciousness. 19 Another entanglement of the metaphorical and the literal can be traced in the image of the ‘white column,’ that develops from trope to corporeal bird. When Mark’s doctor Weber and another character go bird-watching and suddenly spot a whooper, a majestic, white crane that is almost extinct in North America, Mark’s mysterious image can be connected to an elusive referent, even though a hint of uncertainty remains: The ghost glides shining across the fields. Neither can breathe. He grasps at a l ast hope. ‘That was it. What was in the road. [Mark] said he saw a co lumn of white ... ‘ He studies her face, science wanting so badly to be confirmed. 20 Weber’s longing for a r eferent remains unresolved in the end, once again defying clear categorisation into either the figurative or the literal. 5. Conclusion A crisis of representation typical of trauma narration is expressed in The Echo Maker through antithetic narrative strategies that represent the cranes: simultaneously, they are literal birds and trauma symbols. In connection to Mark’s trauma, the creatures feature as a point of reference for his recovery from the coma and recur as tropes of the accident and his healing process. Moments of

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__________________________________________________________________ immediacy, such as intrusive gestures of literal birds, undermine the symbolic dimension of the birds. Because the novel is, at times, ambiguous as to whether it talks about real cranes or their metaphors, it goes beyond Hartman’s claim of the interplay of the figurative and the literal in the narration of trauma. Rather, the cranes exemplify how the two overlap in the same signifier, preventing an ultimate classification into either the metaphorical or the literal.

Notes 1

C. Caruth (ed), Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995, pp. 1-9; B. Van der Kolk and O. Van der Hart, ‘The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma,’ Caruth (ed), p. 172; and S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, Routledge, New York, 1992, pp. 57 and 248-249. 2 For example, in Writing History, Writing Trauma, Dominick LaCapra cautions that, ‘[i]n the sublime, the excess of trauma becomes an uncanny source of elation or ecstasy’, (p. 23). For a discussion of (un-)representability with regard to postcolonial trauma fiction, see Jane Elliott’s ‘The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction’, and Craps and Buelens, ‘Introduction’, in the same volume. 3 G. Hartman, ‘On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies’, New Literary History, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1995, p. 537. 4 A. Whitehead, Trauma Fiction, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004, p. 83. 5 R. Winslow, ‘Troping Trauma: Conceiving (of) Experiences of Speechless Terror’, Journal of Advanced Composition, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2004, p. 609. 6 L. Vickroy, Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2002, p. 11. 7 R. Granofsky, The Trauma Novel: Contemporary Symbolic Depictions of Collective Disaster, Lang, New York, 1995, pp. 6-7. 8 Vickroy, p. 32. 9 C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996, p. 7. 10 J. Elliott, ‘The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction: Neoliberalism and Narratives of Extreme Oppression’, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2009, p. 350. 11 L. Di Prete, Foreign Bodies: Trauma, Corporeality and Textuality in Contemporary American Culture, Routledge, New York, 2006, p. 12. 12 Previous scholarship mainly focuses on the human characters in the text. If mentioned at all, the cranes are seen as part of the ecocriticist project of the novel. 13 Ibid., pp. 12-13.

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Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, p. 64. R. Powers, The Echo Maker, Vintage, London, 2007, p. 320. 16 When Mark awakes from the coma, he suffers from Capgras syndrome, a condition which makes him believe that the people he loved most are, in fact, impostors. 17 Powers, p. 325. 18 Ibid., p. 499. 19 Ibid., p. 533. 20 Ibid., p. 544. 15

Bibliography Caruth, C., Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995 Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996. Craps, S. and Buelens, G., ‘Introduction: Postcolonial Trauma Novels’. Studies in the Novel. Vol. 40, No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-12. Di Prete, L., Foreign Bodies: Trauma, Corporeality and Textuality in Contemporary American Culture. Routledge, New York, 2006. Elliott, J., ‘The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction: Neoliberalism and Narratives of Extreme Oppression’. Novel: A Forum on Fiction. Vol. 42, No. 2, 2009, pp. 349-354. Felman, S. and Laub, D., Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. Routledge, New York, 1992. Granofsky, R., The Trauma Novel: Contemporary Symbolic Depictions of Collective Disaster. Lang, New York, 1995. Harris, C.B., ‘The Story of the Self: The Echo Maker and Neurological Realism’. Intersections: Essays on Richard Powers. Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, 2008. Hartman, G.H., ‘On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies’. New Literary History. Vol. 26, No. 3, 1995, pp. 537-563.

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__________________________________________________________________ LaCapra, D., Writing History, Writing Trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001. Leys, R., Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago University Press, Chicago, 2000. Luckhurst, R., The Trauma Question. Routledge, London, 2008. Powers, R., The Echo Maker. Vintage, London, 2007. Robinett, J., ‘The Narrative Shape of Traumatic Experience’. Literature and Medicine. Vol. 26, No. 2, 2007, pp. 290-311. Van der Kolk, B.A. and Van der Hart, O., ‘The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma’. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995. Vickroy, L., Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2002. Whitehead, A., Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004. Winslow, R., ‘Troping Trauma: Conceiving (of) Experiences of Speechless Terror’. Journal of Advanced Composition. Vol. 24, No. 3, 2004, pp. 607-633. Carolin Alice Hofmann is a PhD student in the American Studies Program at Leipzig University, Germany.

Locating the Trauma Womb: Ricardo Piglia’s Absent City E.A. Leonard Abstract Many trauma theorists speculate about our ability to imagine and convey the experience of a cr isis that is both unspeakable and irrefutable. Their reflections evoke a sense of the profound disruption of being and belonging that mark a crisis. Ricardo Piglia’s literary depiction of the aftermath of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ is a particularly postmodern response to these theorists’ musings; it demonstrates the indirect inscription and displacement of traumatic experience. The body in a postmodern world is not a singular centred identity. Many are interested in claiming a piece of it. Religious groups, medical science, gay rights activists, racial interest groups, feminists, governments, dictatorships - all want a claim to the corporeal space. The body is a political site in a postmodern world and sometimes it is problematic or dangerous to have one. Owning a body that has experienced both cultural and personal traumas is problematic because it is trapped between the past and the future in a place that is not the present. The Absent City serves the purpose of reframing the personal postmodern experience of trauma and in order to recuperate memory and the sense of the present, and to bear witness to the psychic diaspora of the Argentine people. The central trope of Piglia’s novel is woman as storytelling machine. She is a cyborg, a technological invention that according to Heidegger, shouldn’t be abandoned because of the challenges it presents to the natural world, but should be spiritually ‘shifted.’ Piglia chose this trope to do just that and to demonstrate the profound misalignment that occurs when trauma forces repeated abandonment of the imagination. Key Words: Argentina, Benjamin, cyborg, Heidegger, identity, memory, Piglia, postmodern, storytelling, trauma. ***** In a lawless society, the body is the site of the refusal of the present and the denial of corporeal rights. Owning a body that has suffered trauma is troubling because the mind abandons the body, and is often traversing the space between the past and the future, between memories and longing. And yet, even in this wireless, virtualised world, the link is forged - we are both body and mind. And because we are both, we can pose these questions: are we what we perceive or are we what we utter? Should we rely on narrative to represent the ways in which we experience the world? If not, what is narrative’s purpose, especially since the context of our physical space seems to work against the organisation and condensation that are required for sane and coherent narratives? And so a postmodern writer at the centre

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__________________________________________________________________ of a traumatic experience might wonder what it would be like to articulate a bodyless space. Ricardo Piglia’s 1992 novel, The Absent City is an important postmodern, postdisaster novel that imagines a conversation between the living and the dead; it becomes a meeting ground for perceptual space and uttered space. The setting is a Buenos Aires that exists in accumulated historical experiences and that is constructed by a matrix of stories, their tones reverberating from the untellable violence of a ‘dirty war.’ 1 Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina’s government undertook a national reorganisation project that ‘produced silence and absence in the Argentine society, silences and absences it then filled with its own discourse.’ 2 The Proceso’s goal was to smother the ‘spiritual malady’ of the oppressed who sought relief in socialism and communism in response to Argentina’s neoliberal economic goals. To carry out their plan, the military censored newspapers and films, burned books, and halted all private production of social and cultural knowledge. The government envisioned a unified Argentine history and cultural identity, which the country’s professors, students and workers sought to undermine. In broad daylight, tens of thousands of real or suspected political opponents were marched at gunpoint out of their homes and places of work and were never seen or heard from again. 3 The authorities denied their disappearances and denied the repression. Instead, they forced the reinvention of history. The result was that it became dangerous for Argentineans to confront their recollection of the disaster; they were always at risk of mis-remembering and forgetting. I n order to safely navigate the experience, Argentineans coded their speech, veiled their memories and shaded the truth. In The Absent City, Piglia responds to the spiritual malady of oppression by creating a virtual space that allows the characters to challenge official versions of reality, and to form a site that safeguards their truths. Much like the experiences of the Argentine people during the time of the oppression, the novel is filled with interruptions, fragmentations and unsatisfied intrigues. This is a story about how it might be possible to recuperate the experience of trauma through storytelling storytelling becoming one possible way to give voice to the postmodern experience of trauma. At the centre of the novel is Elena, a cyborg who was once a woman and who, through her stored memories, re-creates the absent city. She is an aberrance invented by her husband, Macedonio Fernandez, in order to alleviate the loneliness in his life after her death. Macedonio imagines how to ‘recuperate an eternal woman:’ 4 He was thinking about the memories that survive after the body is gone ... [e]ngraved on the bones of the skull, the invisible forms of the language of love stays alive. And perhaps it was possible to reconstruct them, to bring those memories back to life

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__________________________________________________________________ ... [t]hat afternoon he came up with the idea of entering those remembrances and staying there, in her memory. 5 Macedonio shapes Elena’s memories into a mechanised Scheherazade; a cyborg designed to tell stories in order to sustain desire, but who instead narrates the public’s private stories of loss. T ogether they make up an absent city of mourners who collectively create a network of experiences that is the internalised understanding of post-dictatorial Buenos Aires. Elena is outside of the city and everywhere within it; she creates memories that the citizens rely on to confirm their experiences. One citizen describes how the community envisions her: She is eternal and will always be eternal and in the present. To deactivate her they would have to destroy the world, negate this conversation and the conversations of those who want to destroy her. 6 To them she is timeless and ever present. If they cannot locate her physically it is because she is narrating the very existence that allows them to imagine her. The stories Elena weaves are endless yet she only has the ability to form words that provoke the imagination; she does not provide images. Elena exists only to tell stories and to privilege the intersection of narrative streams but not to fix images onto memory. Storytelling in this way becomes shelter from a justified world. One of the overlying tropes of the novel is concerned with a s earch for an originating language, one that would adequately express the experience of a multitude of losses. Elena speaks to make these losses known. In his essay, ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,’ Walter Benjamin asks readers to consider the implications of the bodily experience upon story. According to Benjamin, both the storyteller’s and the listener’s experiences are integrally tied to the relative position of the bodily experience. He writes: Viewed from a certain distance, the great, simple outlines which define the storyteller stand out in him, or rather, they become visible in him, just as in a rock, a human head or an animal’s body may appear to an observer at the proper distance and angle of vision. This distance and this angle of vision are prescribed for us by an experience which we may have almost every day. 7 According to Benjamin, the storyteller gains credibility in describing a shared sense of reality and by having physically participated in the collective memory of a community. The stories s/he tells contain something useful which provides counsel that the listener can then use in the world. In turn, the listener imagines the

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__________________________________________________________________ storyteller as both part of the fiction and part of reality. But in the aftermath of the First World War, Benjamin disparages storytelling in the modern world. ‘The art of storytelling,’ he writes, ‘is coming to an end.’ 8 By 1938, Benjamin believed the storyteller had become a t hing of the past and that listeners had become embarrassed to hear a s tory expressed. ‘It is as if,’ he writes, ‘something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us: the ability to exchange experiences.’ 9 He believed those experiences had fallen in value because they had been contradicted by mechanical and immoral forces that were beyond human reason. In ‘The Story Teller’ Benjamin summons an image that is both startling and familiar: [I]n a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of force of destructive torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human body. 10 In the aftermath of the First World War, the act of storytelling moves from within the bodily experience - from within the subjective bodily experience - to outside of it. Benjamin’s death knell for the storyteller didn’t come to pass. Instead, the storyteller moves to the outside in order to narrate the unwieldy force and power that is traumatic experience. The aftermath of trauma coalesces with the physical abandonment of the centre in order to make room for the traumatic experience that has been frozen in time. To tell a story about a trauma is to tell a story about a hidden trauma. It is to create a cultural autobiography that divulges a coded secret. The traumatic story is not impossible to narrate, it is just impossible to tell the event as a whole. The postmodern story becomes fragmented, ruptured and secretive to include a multiplicity of voices. To tell a story in the 21st century is many things: it can define a moment, move forward into the future, reassemble meaning, memorialise events and individuals, and recapture loss. But often it does not restore meaning - a fact that defines the postmodern tale. Benjamin laments the loss of meaning-making as indicative of the loss of storytelling. Congruent with this loss, was the rise of the novel. For Benjamin, the novel had nothing to do with storytelling. In ‘The Storyteller’ he describes the differences between the novel and other forms of literature, such as fairy tales and legends. He claims that unlike both, the novel has no connection to an oral tradition and does not enter into the culture in any significant way. Benjamin isolates the novelist as well; writers are solitary individuals who are only able to ‘give evidence of the profound perplexity of the living.’ 11 Yet he doesn’t inquire deeply about the public life of the solitary writer. Instead, he imagines a man in a v acuum - untouched and unaffected by the world around him. F or Benjamin, meaning-making went by way of mustard gas and writers became the unaffected recorders of the aftermath.

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__________________________________________________________________ In a particularly postmodern move, Piglia, turns the idea of the solitary, disengaged writer inside out: Piglia, a novelist submersed in a totalitarian regime, writes about a storyteller who tells fictionalised versions of real stories. In this case, the storyteller is a cyborg who creates a virtual reality that forms a network of plots, characters, cultural references, political propaganda, and media reports. Each of the stories she tells attends to an untranslatable moment of terror: in the story of Lucia Joyce, a woman is beaten and locked in a h otel room. In the story ‘A Woman,’ a mother abandons her young son to take a train to a distant city, where she checks into a hotel and then kills herself. ‘First Love’ is a story about a girl who is trapped in a mirror by the boy who loves her. In ‘The Girl,’ a child stops using personal pronouns and to her father’s dismay, invents a language that explains her experience of the world. In ‘The Recording’ Elena comes nearest to describing the violence of Argentina’s military dictatorship: one day two ranchers rescue a lost calf from deep inside a mass grave. The scene they encounter is horrific and inescapable. The older man describes what has happened: They’d come from there and there and kill what they had brought ... people with their hands tied, in hoods. They would drag them from the trucks without even turning the car radio off. 12 The stories intersect through shared images and artefacts, yet they refuse to unify into one cohesive story line. Instead they trace a map of lost lives and histories and only provide hints as to where their paths have crossed. This interweaving becomes a roadmap for the reader who, during the course of reading the book, will find that all discourse transits here. On this map is the literary history of the world and this history contains all of the social and cultural experience of the ages. Importantly, Elena is a work of technology. She is an invention that was designed to fulfil a purpose - to duplicate and disseminate stories. Technology, according to Heidegger shouldn’t be abandoned because of the challenges it presents to the natural world, but should be spiritually ‘shifted.’ He asks: Who are we if can’t recall? What does technology do to human nature and to memory? Since we can’t return to nature and we can’t abandon technology, can technology be used to shift the spirit as the natural world once did? 13 In this technological age, in this age of multi-national corporate control, this is an important idea to consider. Can we re-imagine a kind of technology that shifts the human spirit? I n what ways are we currently and potentially subject to manipulation by our own machinery and the machinery owned by our leaders? Piglia imagines a machine - Elena, a storyteller, a femachine - standing between

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__________________________________________________________________ those who desire to erase the natural world or to enframe it within their own design. By retrieving and relaying the memories of the thousands of people who disappeared during the Proceso, the storyteller becomes the way out of the enframent. At one point in the novel, Elena acknowledges the multiplicity of identities that have accreted to construct her memory: I am Amalia, if you hurry me I will say that I am Molly, I am her, locked up in the big house, desperate, pursued by Rosas’s mazorca, I am Irish, I will say then, I am her and I am also the others, I was the others, I am Hipólita, the gimp, the little cripple ... I am Temple Drake ... [t]hese and other stories, I have told them already, it does not matter who is talking. 14 As a cultural memory bank, Elena uses language to reposition, re-inscribe, reimagine, and recreate the memories that form Argentina’s cultural identity. Yet inside the shattered history of this novel is a p aradox - the narration of the impossibility of narrating and the impossibility of not narrating after the appropriation of language and memory. Piglia imagines a space without borders, a space without order, a space that rebels. The only response to the appropriation of narrative is to invent false narratives, to insert conjecture, to re-imagine crimes that the state wants to forget. Story is the weapon against forgetfulness. In one scene, Piglia imagines a confrontation with the police who chillingly state their view on the storytelling machine: She’s at the external phase of the fantasy, an addict running away from herself. She interjects her hallucinations and must be watched ... [t]he police ... are completely removed from all fantasies. We are reality ... [w]e are the servants of the truth. 15 In the face of such totalising propaganda, the lawlessness of the text provides clues about the necessary response. Ricardo Piglia writes, ‘That which is absent from reality, is that which is truly important.’ 16 In The Absent City, he makes that which is absent come forward. Absolute truth is replaced by multi-vocal memories. Towards the end of the novel, Elena begins to speak in the first person, present tense voice evocative of Molly Bloom, a character in James Joyce’s Ulysses. The state eventually finds her and locks her in a museum in hope that imprisonment will silence her. But she will not be silenced. She begins to narrate her own existence, reminiscing about life in a body, as a woman who once lived and loved and died in Buenos Aires. The story spreads across the city and enters the imaginations of its citizens:

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__________________________________________________________________ I am full of stories ... I am the singer the one who sings ... I can still remember the old lost voices where the water laps ashore ... sometimes I have to drag myself, but I will go on, to the edge of the water, I will, yes. 17 As with many postmodern texts, the ending in The Absent City is inconclusive. Elena isn’t a heroic cyborg storyteller weaving a new world for humankind to occupy. But she is a safeguard of private space - a place where storytelling can give birth to the imagination and can become a womb for the reintegration of a society burdened by trauma.

Notes 1

R. Piglia, The Absent City, Duke University Press, Durham, 2000, p. 2. S. Colas, Postmodernity in Latin America: The Argentine Paradigm, Duke University Press, Durham, 1994, p. 124. 3 C. Osorio (ed), ‘Memorandum on Torture and Disappearance in Argentina’, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part I, May 31, 1978, Viewed on 6 May 2006, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73. 4 Piglia, op. cit., p. 127. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 W. Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov’, Slought.org, Viewed on 2 April 2011, http://slought.org/files/downloads/events/ SF_1331-Benjamin.pdf, p. 1. 8 Ibid., p. 1. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 3. 12 Piglia, op. cit., p. 36. 13 M. Poster, ‘High-Tech Frankenstein, or Heidegger Meets Stelarc’, The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age, Joanna Zylinska (ed), Continuum, New York, 2002, p. 18. 14 Piglia, op. cit., p. 13. 15 Ibid., p. 80. 16 Ibid., p. 142. 17 Ibid., p. 139. 2

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Bibliography Benjamin, W., ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov’. Illuminations. Harvard University Press and Harcourt, New York, 1968. Brown, J.A., ‘Life Signs: Ricardo Piglia’s Cyborgs’. Science, Literature, and Film in the Hispanic World. Palgrave, New York, 2006. Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma and Narrative in History. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996. Clark, A., ‘Cyborgs Unplugged’. Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, New York, 2004. Colas, S., Postmodernity in Latin America: The Argentine Paradigm. Duke University Press, Durham [N.C.], 1994. Dante, A., ‘The Divine Comedy’. Great Literature Online. 1997-2011, Viewed on 4 Feb, 2011, http://dantealighieri.classicauthors.net/DivineComedyThe/. Osorio, C. (ed), ‘Memorandum on Torture and Disappearance in Argentina’. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part I. May 31, 1978, Viewed on 6 May 2006, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/. Piglia, R., The Absent City. Duke University Press, Durham, 2000. Poster, M., ‘High-Tech Frankenstein, or Heidegger Meets Stelarc’. The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age. Continuum, New York, 2002. E.A. Leonard is an independent scholar. While interested in the most obscure things of life and the universe, currently her research and writing is devoted to unveiling the most well kept secrets of all times.

Trauma, Memory and Identity in Australian War Fiction: A Practitioner’s Viewpoint Tessa Lunney Abstract This chapter reports a n ovel-in-progress, as part of a t hesis examining silence within Australian war fiction. War trauma is a potent source of silence, either from the battlefront or the homefront. How can fiction – which is nothing but words – express silence? If trauma and silence are the foundations of characterisation, this problematises the issues of memory and identity within a character. Each memory then becomes an action, pushing the character’s sense of identity in unusual directions. How do you work with this creatively, within a plot worthy of war fiction? The bulk of my dissertation for a doctorate of creative arts is a novel, set in Sydney and dealing with Australia’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan. It sets out to explore the complex relationship between silence, trauma, memory, identity and war, with this current conflict as the focal idea and inspiration. Silence, war and trauma are intimately connected, both on an individual and national level. Literal silences, where characters do not speak to each other, are one way of expressing silence, but they quickly become repetitive. This has forced me to explore other ways of embodying silence, such as indirect telling, deception, acting out, clues and mysteries, half-told narratives, and unusual behaviour. War trauma is most often experienced individually; a thousand examples of personal trauma build into a collective understanding of war, both as a literal event and a metaphorical framework. When individual trauma contradicts the national story of war, it creates cracks and silences within memory, and within identity. Identity, formed by silence, can be reshaped into skewed patterns within families. My research led me to Holocaust survivor narratives, to trauma theory, and its dialogue between literature and psychoanalysis. My emerging novel explores the relationship between trauma, silent memory and identity through a modern war setting. Key Words: Trauma, memory, identity, Australian, fiction, war, silence. ***** When I mention that I am researching silence and war, every other person wants to tell me about someone they know who never spoke about their war experiences. Great-uncles who were interned at Changi, a notorious prisoner of war camp in Singapore, grandfathers who fought the Japanese army for years in the hills of what is now Papua New Guinea – their service is listed publicly on the World War II nominal roll, yet to their family they leave nothing but silence. The figure of the silent veteran, and the ways in which their silence affected their

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__________________________________________________________________ family and community, are key links between trauma, memory and identity in war fiction. In the following short, intense scene from The Great World by David Malouf, the slippery, potent, nature of silence is revealed – and also why it must remain unbroken: She was looking past his face to one she had never seen. It was the one he wore when he was too deep in himself to be aware any longer of what he might have to conceal; the face he showed no one, and which even he had not seen. 1 Ellie is playing hide-and-seek with her foster brother Vic and their family. It is in the weeks after Vic has come home from slaving for three years on the ThaiBurma railway as a prisoner of war. Vic is compulsively secretive; when he reveals his true self, the effect is so startling that those who witness it are bound to him. Writing about silence is like Ellie seeing the face behind the face. It is searching for the hidden, to know the unknown – or at least, to trace the borders of the unknowable, and to outline what we cannot know. Caruth describes trauma as the place between knowing and not-knowing, and I think of silence in a similar way. 2 To understand silence in war fiction, I have been exploring the ways trauma, memory and identity influence each other. Understanding silence is key to understanding how trauma, memory and identity interact; by understanding the nature of the silence, the nature of the trauma becomes clearer, as does its power and pervasiveness in war fiction. My Brother Jack by George Johnston explores the ways in which family silence around Great War service shaped the main character’s understanding of war, and how war trauma, and resulting violence, shaped the identities of the next generation. My Brother Jack was originally published in 1964. The novel is narrated by younger brother David, and opens on f amily life during and immediately postWorld War I. David’s initial impression of the Great War is silence and fear. His parents are absent, and their sudden reappearance on the troop ship in 1919 ‘was charged, for me, with a huge and numbing terror.’ 3 His parents, his mother especially, bring many injured soldiers to live in the family home. He is left to understand the war by himself, ‘piecing it to gether’ 4 from trips to the veterans’ hospitals, family sing-alongs of old war songs, and the obsessive knitting of balaclavas by the disabled men who lived with them. David is explicit about the war’s powerful yet obtuse influence: ... every corner of that little suburban house must have been impregnated for years with the very essence of some gigantic and sombre experience that had taken place thousands of miles away,

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__________________________________________________________________ and quite outside my own being, yet which ultimately had come to invade my mind and stay there, growing all the time, forming into a shape. And it went on for years. There was no corner of the house from the time I was seven until I was twelve or thirteen that was not littered with the inanimate props of that vast, dark experience ... 5 His sensitivity to the horror of war, and his parents extended absence, David says ‘made me something of a namby-pamby.’ 6 This is the opposite response to his brother, the knockabout Jack. These early experiences help lay the foundations of their characters – Davy as cautious but opportunistic, Jack as generous and wild. As the family silences deepen, so do the differences between the two brothers. Meredith Snr is violent, which David describes as resulting from the war. 7 He directs most of his anger towards his wife, at one point chasing her with his service revolver; but he also institutes monthly beatings of his sons. 8 David’s reaction is to hide in a cupboard, but Jack uses his anger to become an amateur boxer. Meredith Snr stops beating Jack when Jack threatens him with retaliation, but David’s beatings only stop when he loses consciousness and the doctor threatens to call the police. 9 The unpredictable violence, and silence about it at the heart of the family, push the brothers to the furthest extremes of their natures. One of the most potent sources of silence is trauma. Some contemporary novels address trauma directly, and use current debates about dealing with trauma as the plot’s momentum. 10 However, what captures my attention is when silence and trauma are so deeply embedded within the text that they are barely remarked upon. Come In Spinner by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James gives an apt demonstration of this embedded traumatic silence. Come In Spinner was written between 1945 a nd 1947, and set in Sydney in 1944. 11 It examines a week in the lives of three women working in a beauty salon – Deb, Claire and Guinea. As James writes in the introduction of the 1990 expanded edition, ‘We would tell the Sydney story as we knew it, pulling no punches.’ 12 The novel follows these women as they deal with everything from war profiteering to intricate social rules to abortion. Guinea goes home one Sunday, and her father is ill. He is described as gaunt, bony and ‘bloodless under [his] tan.’ 13 It is only in the middle of a s peech by Guinea’s mother about financial prudence that we understand why he’s ill – ‘It was bad enough when your father was on relief work, but when his old wound came against him on that road job and we just had to live on the dole ticket, that was when the pinch came.’ 14 It is easy to miss the significance of this line, because Guinea’s father barely rates a mention in the rest of the book. However, I was struck by its simplicity and obviousness. It is never said that his wound is from World War I, but the timing

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__________________________________________________________________ and setting imply it, as does Guinea’s mother’s attitude of unquestioning support, and the fact it is called a wound and not an injury. This implication is reinforced when the family discusses war profiteering, and obliquely mentions post-war government payments. 15 But it is the silence around the origin of his suffering that seems to indicate it is a war wound. Wounded veterans were so much part of the landscape that they escaped notice, and in the context of another war, Guinea’s father’s trauma slips into anonymity. 16 In fact, most of the war trauma we don’t see, because the novel is in the middle of it. One of these instances is that of Guinea’s sister, Monnie, who is kidnapped by her supposed friends and locked up in a brothel. She is only found when she is taken to court for the crime of prostitution. Monnie is deceived, drugged, raped and accused; but as this is unfolding through the course of the novel, the only reaction we see is Monnie’s mute terror. That she is also a victim of war is made explicit, and it is the treatment of women during wartime that is the thematic foundation of this novel. 17 Damousi in Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, nostalgia and grief in post-war Australia gives examples of the wives of veterans using ‘the war’ as a framework for understanding – for example, that the odd behaviour of returned soldiers was ‘because of the war.’ 18 This framework is used as shorthand or an abbreviation, so that the details of service or suffering do not need to be explained. 19 From Damousi’s description, this framework was used to excuse, or at least understand, anti-social behaviour and difficult personality changes within the veteran. However, if the public perception of the war was negative, then this could mean that veterans were judged without reference to their behaviour at home or actions in combat. It is well publicised that community feelings against the Vietnam War left many returning soldiers feeling isolated, and even vilified. 20 This often led to anger on the part of the returning servicemen, and this comes out strongly in Vietnam War veteran fiction. In William Nagle’s The Odd Angry Shot, the language feels broken. 21 The text switches between the first and second person, using the second person to remember the past; ‘The party tonight, you weren’t nineteen until Monday ... it’s only a day, you shrugged to your mother.’ 22 This use of the second person is to exhort the ‘I,’ the unnamed narrator, to ‘Remember:’ ‘Remember how your back froze when you turned around ... Remember the bus, chartered, seemed all a b it unmilitary ... Remember when you got to the airport, seven days’ pre-embarkation leave ... ‘ 23 Nagle even uses both the first and second person in the one sentence; ‘Strain your ears a b it more, are they talking about us,’ making it c lear that this is not the author-persona talking to the character, or the protagonist talking to the reader, but the protagonist talking to himself. 24 Nagle also makes use of half sentences, splintered sentences, and one-word sentences with no subject or verb. ‘Travelling kit, shaving kit in a leather folder’ is both a sentence and a p aragraph. 25 However, this is mostly in the descriptions of

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__________________________________________________________________ Australia; once the action starts in Vietnam, the prose is more flowing. 26 Nagle’s broken language reveals a gap between the national image of the soldier, as heroic and self-sacrificing, and the reality of their experience, with its tedium, anger, hunger, filth and dubious combat actions. In the Anzac legend, this image stands for ‘reckless valour in a g ood cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat.’ 27 This is a quote from Bean, a well-known Australian historian of World War I. His ideas provide the accepted language for writing about a war experience – as Nagle tries to break away from these ideas, his sentences break too. If historical narratives contribute to individual memory, then the gap between Bean’s ideas and Nagle’s fictionalised experience shapes the memories and identity of the protagonist, and becomes a source of silence. 28 These ideas – trauma, memory, identity - are ways, for me, of trying to speak about the unspeakable experience. This experience need not be traumatic, but it is life-changing and revelatory. It exists only as emotion and in the sensory realm recalled as image, smell, touch, taste and sound, and cannot adequately be rendered in language. Yet we are storytellers, we need language to create community and belonging, we need to tell and to hear. Language is our last and best option for doing so, but it is not always equal to the task - it cannot force the imagination of the listener or reader so that they truly know. 29 To try and counter this, I regularly visit museums, such as the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, to let my imagination stay in these painful places, to use the artefacts on display as a glimpse into an experience that is otherwise closed to me. I closely inspect the Great War tunics in their glass cabinets, and touch the cold metal of rebuilt aircraft. I am particularly drawn to the black and white photographs in the World War II display; such as one of five pilots, palm trees behind them buffeted by wind, striding down a makeshift road on their way to a mission. I cannot know what it might have been like there. But I can use my knowledge of the tropics to imagine the heat and humidity - I can add the smell of mud and unwashed bodies, Australian voices and the noise of wind - to create a space within my imagination where stories of war, trauma and silence can be understood. Within my research, I’ve tried to work back from story to identity, identity back to memory, feeling the silences as I go - working out their shape and weight, their taste and texture - to know how they surround trauma. So when the silences sit beside us, although they do not speak, they are as familiar and known as the wool of granddad’s uniform. This chapter is a report of a novel-in-progress, so I shall end with a small excerpt. My novel is set in Sydney, and focuses on the Talbot family and their involvement in war. This piece gives a brief overview of the family’s military history, demonstrating how silence can be built into the family legend, or slip by unnoticed; how information is passed between generations, or how the right to

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__________________________________________________________________ silence is fiercely guarded. This is about Kate, the 26 year-old granddaughter who is home on leave from Afghanistan: To say that Kate revered her grandmother Elsie wouldn’t be quite right. Kate had revered her grandfather Jack, Elsie’s husband, World War II hero and solid, all-round Aussie bloke. Kate had loved to hear his stories of his war service, begging him to tell the same funny tales over and over. When she was twelve she started reading about the war, reading books on the campaigns in North Africa and New Guinea, asking her grandfather specific questions about this or that action. Poppy Jack always had some little anecdote that put real voices to the history, and his years as a high school English teacher made his stories clear and perfectly pitched to her age. She begged for photos and letters, but Elsie said they’d all gone. In the months leading up to Jack’s death, Kate visited him in hospital every afternoon after school, listening to his tales unravel and ramble over his early life. He spoke about his brothers Mark and Pete, about Elsie, and a lot of names that Kate had never heard of. In his lucid moments he instructed Kate to talk to his brother Pete, who’d fought in Korea. Kate went over to Pete’s fibro shack in Blacktown, but he refused to talk to her, ‘Whaddaya wanna know that stuff for, girlie? It’s dead and gone!’ His house smelt of stale cigarette smoke, mouldy laundry, and frying, and she didn’t see him again until he was laid out in his coffin a year later.

Notes 1

D. Malouf, The Great World, Chatto & Windus Ltd, London, 1990, p. 223. ‘If Freud turns to literature to describe traumatic experiences, it is because literature, like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relation between knowing and not knowing’, C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland,1996, p. 3. 3 G. Johnston, My Brother Jack, A&R Classics, Sydney, 2001, p. 4. 4 Ibid., p. 5. 5 Ibid., p. 11. 6 Ibid., p. 10. 7 Ibid., pp. 36-37. 8 Ibid., p. 42. 9 Ibid., p. 47. 2

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These include Shira Nayman (2010) The Listener; Jonathan Safran Foer (2005) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy, (1991, 1993, 1995). 11 D. Cusack and F. James, Come In Spinner, Imprint Classics, North Ryde, 1990, p. viii-ix. 12 Ibid., p. viii. 13 Ibid., p. 206. 14 Ibid., pp. 210-211. 15 Ibid., pp. 216-217. 16 J. Damousi, The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1999. There is an illuminating chapter on how maimed soldiers struggled to maintain a visible presence in Victorian society in the interwar years that can be found on pp. 85-102. 17 Ibid., p. 551. 18 J. Damousi, Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in PostWar Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001, p. 113. 19 The movement in contemporary fiction is to dismantle this war framework, and articulate the specific actions and circumstances that led to individual change. 20 There are many studies that discuss this, but an interesting one for Australia is in S. Rintoul, Ashes of Vietnam: Australian Voices, William Heinemann, Richmond, VIC, 1987. 21 N. Anisfield, Words and Fragments in Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Film of the Vietnam War, W. Searle (ed), Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, USA, 1988. The point is made that fragmentation is apparent in many war novels, but even more so in Vietnam war novels, and argues that this imitates the war experience. 22 W. Nagle, The Odd Angry Shot, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1979, p. 3. 23 Ibid., pp. 1-2. 24 Ibid., p. 3. 25 Ibid., p. 3. 26 Ibid., p. 90. 27 CEW Bean on Australian War Memorial website: http://www.awm.gov. au/encyclopedia/anzac/spirit.asp. 28 N. Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 2010, p. 121. 29 S. Hynes, A Soldiers’ Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War, Penguin Books, New York, 1997, pp. 3 and 25. N. Hunt, op. cit., pp. 43, 115, 162 and 197. Hynes and Hunt both provide clear arguments for the centrality of narrative and storytelling in relating war experiences.

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Bibliography Anisfield, N., ‘Words and Fragments’. Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War. Searle, W. (ed), Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, USA, 1988. Barker, P., Regeneration. Penguin Books, London, 1992. Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1996. Cusack, D. and James, F., Come in Spinner. Imprint Classics, North Ryde, NSW, 1990. Damousi, J., Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-War Australia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 2001. Foer, J.S., Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Penguin, London, 2005. Hunt, N.C., Memory, War and Trauma. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2010. Hynes, S., A Soldiers’ Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War. Penguin Books, New York, 1997. Johnston, G., My Brother Jack. A&R Classics, Sydney, 2001. Malouf, D., The Great World. Chatto & Windus Ltd, London, 1990. Nagle, W., The Odd Angry Shot. Angus & Robertson Publishers, Sydney, 1979. Nayman, S., The Listener. Simon and Schuster, Pymble, NSW, 2010. Rintoul, S., Ashes of Vietnam: Australian Voices. William Heinemann, Richmond, VIC, 1987. Tessa Lunney is in the final year of a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney. She is examining silences in contemporary Australian war fiction, and the bulk of her dissertation will be comprised of a novel, about the silences around one family’s involvement in war. Contact: 16684531@ student.uws.edu.au

The Trauma of the Ephemeral Body in Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised and Oskar Roehler’s Elementarteilchen Imola Mikó Abstract Michel Houellebecq’s controversial novel Atomised (1998), and its adaptation to the screen, the Elementarteilchen (2006) by Oskar Roehler present the personal trauma of two protagonists embedded in the collective debauchery of the 1960s 1970s libertinism. Bruno and his half-brother, Michel, representative figures of their generation, are in their midlife crisis. Their problems are exposed as a direct result of the glorification of young and beautiful bodies by the hippie movement contrasted now with the lived reality of the ephemeral human physique. My aim in this chapter is to show how this traumatic experience is configured in the two media. More precisely, I would like to investigate how differently the two characters react, solve it and how divergently the literary and film texts ‘cope with it.’ I argue that the ‘Hollywoodising’ techniques of the film adaptation envision a more sanitised perception of trauma than the novel does. This is achieved by rewriting the ending of the book, and by reducing and domesticating its philosophical flânerie into a more consumable visual representation of the body. Is this technique a n ecessity implied by the medium of film? Does the seductive, colourful and idealistic display of bodies on screen prove an intrinsic relation between cinema and this corporeality? To address these problems, I shall delimit the medium-specific aspects from the director’s filmmaking choices. For this reason I propose a comparative stylistic analysis of both texts by applying mise-enscène criticism to show how the traumatised body is visualised in a utopian frame and to examine how novel and film shape trauma differently. Key Words: Sexual libertinism, collective trauma, negative dystopia, naturalism, therapeutic mise-en-scène, intensified continuity. ***** 1. Introduction The contemporary French writer, Michel Houellebecq, now also holder of the prestigious Goncourt Prize, seems to have been tacitly integrated into the canon, though his blunt, provocative writing style still ruffles feathers, dividing critics and readers into inimical camps. But the Houellebecqian post-naturalism, posthumanism, post-romanticism, or however we may label it, stems also from the delicate nature of the social problems his works address. Here I will focus just on Atomised, which I call a criticism, or negative utopia (dystopia) of the sexual libertinism emerging in the sixties. In comparison with this novel I will analyse

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__________________________________________________________________ how its pessimistic perspective on the condition of the ephemeral human nature, is configured in its film adaptation by Oskar Roehler, the Elementarteilchen. 2. Lived Trauma, Theoretical Roots The novel commences with the prologue of an extradiegetic narrator, setting the scene for the first character, Michel Djerzinski, an already well-known microbiologist, who had decided to leave his job for a period. Some pages later his half-brother, Bruno is introduced to the reader as being exactly the opposite of Michel. While ‘Bruno looked precisely as someone in his midlife crisis,’ 1 ‘in the case of Djerzinski, there was no sign of this.’ 2 Bruno is a failed literature teacher and writer, who had lost his interest in life, and all he seeks now is mere sexual satisfaction. The following parts of the novel sketch the family history of both characters, self-reflectively not dwelling on many details, just briefly summarising how the spouses’ life intersected, conceived their descendents, how they divorced, abandoned their children, and continued their happy, selfish lifestyle. Atomised has been justly criticised by Jerry Andrew Varsava of social determinism, and of following the pattern of the naturalistic experimental novel. 3 I argue however, that this speciality of the roman à thèse, as J.A.Varsava calls it, is also a reminiscence of the French nouveau roman’s intention to delimit itself from traditional narratives and character-building, and focus rather on ideas. In Houellebecq’s dystopia, the stress is placed on the trauma experienced by the descendants of the sixties’ generation, and, to the same extent, on the premise and ideological ground that led to Bruno’s, Michel’s, and their girlfriends, Christiane, and Anabelle’s, and a range of other characters’ tragedies. The role of the mentioned ‘outsider’ narrator is doubly significant. First, because he presents the characters from a more distant and therefore critical perspective, and secondly, because he has the space to develop his ideas about a cavalcade of theories that contributed to the sexual liberation. The philosophical discussions about such prominent thinkers as Socrates, Plato, Aldous Huxley, Nietzsche, Deleuze, Sartre, de Sade, Napoleon or Buddha, are subtly worked into the narrative, but occasionally also transcend it, forming substantive mini-treatises. The names I list are not randomly chosen, all of these figures serve as ingredients to the amalgam called New Age. Being faced with the deconstruction of the representative personalities of Western thinking ‒ by changing the angle of examination or pointing out just certain aspects of their oeuvre ‒ the reader may also feel traumatised from being shaken from his/her (firm) beliefs in worshipped icons. Oskar Roehler’s film leaves out this philosophical, ideological approach of this social problem almost entirely, though basically it follows the narrative of the novel. The adaptation is a commonplace Hollywood story, in which the presentation of the sixties is reduced to the display of young, beautiful,

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__________________________________________________________________ occasionally also ugly bodies, for the sake of contrast. The mise-en-scène, especially the dominating bright, vivid colours and the joyful music are meant to recreate the jubilant spirit of this era. Although the Elementarteilchen envisions also some of the negative aspects of the libertine lifestyle, these are overshadowed by the celebration of the latter, surrendering to the voyeuristic-scopophilic look. 3. The Tropes of Trauma 3.1 Identification with the Victims One might wonder what is so traumatic in the novel, if the narrator is a postmodern flâneur, who just strolls with the characters, observes them, describes them, but does not interfere? 4 Well, this is not entirely so. Although his attitude towards the subject is mostly impersonal, we can find many statements in the text which reveal his identification with the victims of the 1960s generation, and the principles they adopted. To support my argument I list some of the variations of the book’s probably most frequently repeated phrase: ‘There had been a mistake. Somewhere certainly had been a mistake’ – this would be the narrator’s identification with Bruno’s grandmother, who blames her daughter for abandoning her and not attending her father’s funeral. 5 ‘How could things come to such a pass?’ – identification with Bruno’s pity about losing his relation with his son. 6 ‘I don’t know how could things end up so wrong’ – Annabelle’s perspective. 7 These may urge the reader to also identify with the traumas of the descendants, or at least provoke him/her to think about its causing principles. There are many other examples where the narrator’s remarks express sympathy, irony, or harsh criticism towards the characters/ideas, which induces more empathy towards the traumatised protagonists. Take for instance the following sentence: ‘At the end of 1966 the grandmother received a l etter from her daughter, who found out her address from Bruno’s father, Serge – since Bruno’s parents wrote to each other every Christmas.’ 8 The neutral comment suddenly reveals the almost nonexistent relations in this family. Another observation is even more cynical: ‘It is always very interesting when others are talking about someone, especially when they totally ignore him. In the end one may ignore himself also, and this is not even terrible. Bruno didn’t feel either that the problem concerns him.’ 9 The formulation expresses the narrator’s condemnation of Bruno’s parents, who decide the future of their child without involving him into the discussion. The narrator’s comments do not ignore even the accomplished, successful Michel, who does not seem to suffer from his early parental abandonment. When for instance, Michel’s mother, Janine is dying, he explains calmly to his yelling brother that she only wanted to stay young and kept away her children, because they would have reminded her of her age. Besides this ironic empathy towards Janine, the narrative voice makes it clear later that Michel could not have feelings anymore. His complete alienation generated this apparent love manifestation. But

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__________________________________________________________________ in fact, he is also replicating his mother’s choice by carrying out research on the creation of immortal beings. The film also uses similar techniques in order to make the viewers empathise with the characters. Such as for example the enactment of Bruno’s session at the psychologist, where we can read the effects of his childhood traumas also from the doctor’s perplexed, exhausted face. The flashbacks here also contribute to a deeper and more accurate understanding of the past. Michael’s acting, his reserved, always calm, smiling face, even when his brother tries to explain to him his disgust of his wife and son, also functions as a commentary on his restrained attitude. 3.2. Naturalistic Descriptions of the Body Another trope of trauma adopted by the novel is the naturalistic depiction mostly of insects, whose abundance in the text permanently reminds the reader of the putrefaction of the body. Such is the scientific description of the flies, bacteria, larvae, which decompose the body of Bruno’s grandfather after his death: His grandfather died in 1961. Under our climate the corpse of the mammalians or the birds first attracts some flies (Musca, Curtonevra), but as decomposition starts, new species take action, namely Calliphora and Lucilla ... 10 Michel is faced with a s imilar spectacle, when his grandmother needs to be exhumed because of the nearby bus station extension. He involuntarily gets a glimpse of her skull and eye sockets, but there are many other examples where the reader wouldn’t even expect such shocking imagery. 11 The most characteristic is the account of the young Michel and his sixteen-year old cousin, Brigitte’s, jubilant, innocent play in the fields, when the narration suddenly starts describing the Trombidium holosericeum tick-type, from which they became full of pimples. In another instance even the baby Michel is presented in a disgusting environment: ‘His son [Michel] was crawling and wiggling awkwardly on the floor, slipping every now and then into the puke and excrement mounds lying on the ground.’ 12 Besides these, the novel often describes the aging bodies of the characters, especially that of Anne, Bruno’s wife, the ill Christiane or Anabelle, who has to be operated on because of uterine cancer, but cannot be cured, and dies. The realistic, unvarnished account of the latter’s medical interventions and feelings from her own perspective: ‘I have been disembowelled – she said to herself – I have been disembowelled like a chicken,’ urges identification with her by raising awareness of the perishable body. 13 The poetic technique applied here, which dominates the whole text, is shocking ‒ a dramatic tool, which may lead the interlocutor to also experience the character’s trauma. But this is not the only method for causing discomfort in the reader. The prolific use of obscene language throughout the text

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__________________________________________________________________ plays a similar role by reminding of the animal-like human body, often referred to as mere flesh, which, once starting to decline, loses its market value. The transformation of the objects of desire into the abject is highly emphasised in the novel. 14 This is not only due to the validation of the ill Bruno’s perspective, as it is in the case of the film, but also to the narrator’s direct, blunt comments on the exclusionist policy, which forces aging bodies to the periphery. These reflections or ‘acts of spites’ performed by the narrator do not have a functional equivalent in the film text. 15 Despised bodies in the latter seem to be just the visions of a mentally unstable character, thus an isolated perspective. The Elementarteilchen, rather than exposing such repulsive imagery, indulges in the cavalcade of attractive nude or semi-nude physiques. I think this is also due to cinema’s intrinsic relation to the body. If we accept Patrick Fuery’s idea that ‘Cinema’s discourse is the discourse of the body’ and that its core mechanism is the libidinal economy ‒ that is, first and foremost it applies to the viewer’s unconscious desires ‒ then it is the filmmakers’ most obvious choice to exploit this aspect of the novel. 16 One might think that the reason for neglecting the naturalistic imagery of the book is that film pictures may be more disturbing, but Houellebecq’s style is also very direct. Does then aesthetisation serve the purpose of coping with trauma? 4. Methods to Overcome As I mentioned earlier, this literary text does not help to surmount trauma, its main goal is to describe it a s realistically and accurately as it c an. It rather replicates these terrible experiences. However, its characters do try to surpass their mortal condition. Michel succeeds in working out the method to reproduce a new, immortal species, without the bodily distresses of humanity. But, paradoxically, he is suspected to have committed suicide. Bruno flings himself into infinite sexual pleasures, but will have to spend his life in a mental clinic. The novel does not leave space for reconciliation, any attempt to rebuild authentic human relationships is condemned to failure. The ironic sci-fi ending of the book, with its epilogue of the new species, documents emotional, squirming humankind as past. The film, in contrast, makes big efforts to cope with traumatic events by emanating therapeutic effect on the audience. I mean this literally, as its most powerful weapon is in this respect the uplifting luminosity of its pictures. One may argue that the rainbow of colours deployed has the function of representing the psychedelic hippy illusion, but the technique is rather more transparent than selfreflective. The abundance of tight close-ups of the actor’s heads predominant in televisual style; the advertisement-rhetoric, the use of radiating bright yellow, and blue colours, put the viewer into a pleasant, comfortable state. However, certain pictures are indeed so artificially intensified, that this aspect works as a negative comment on the fake idyll of the sixties. I refer here to the pictures capturing Janine driving with her son, Bruno to a hippy commune, and then to introduce the

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__________________________________________________________________ two half-brothers to each other. Despite the flamboyant colours, the difficulties of communication (big silences, Michael’s refusal to hug his mother, Bruno’s gauche behaviour) place the responsibility for the neglected family connections on the hurrying, absent-minded mother. There are also other instances of such criticism in the film, mostly manifested in the acting style, the mimic of the privileged face – another feature of intensified continuity. David Bordwell describes with the latter term the style of contemporary American film, arguing, together with other scholars, that Hollywood’s storytelling and visual techniques haven’t fundamentally changed since the studio days. What we see today is just ‘an intensification [italics in the original] of established techniques. Intensified continuity is traditional continuity amped up, raised to a higher pitch of emphasis. It is the dominant style of American mass-audience films today.’ 17 Many prominent features of the aesthetics of this style listed by Bordwell apply to the Elementarteilchen as well: the stress on close-ups, especially those of the face, the mouth and the eyes, the exposure of nude physiques, the overt narration, etc. As László Galántai and Erika Fám also point out, this film relies broadly on stereotypes, especially in the case of Michael, who seems to fulfil the classical oedipal narrative, which contributes to the transparency of the narration. 18 When hearing about Anabelle’s health condition, he immediately goes back to her. Though she won’t be able to have children anymore, they will go to Ireland together. The film’s final picture, even if just on t he level of fiction, envisions a happy reconnection of the four main characters: they are all sitting on a sunny beach, even Bruno and the ‘dead’ Catherine. The song, which is gradually turned up, Bob Dylan’s ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,’ urges for the burial of the gloomy past and for a new beginning. It is a goodbye from all the traumas of the characters and – due to the release date of the song, 1965 – also from the sixties. 5. Conclusions: Is Film Watching Less Traumatic? Why is it that ‘the viewing of a film, even a film about a horrific event, must offer audiences a p leasurable or otherwise rewarding experience, not one, for example, of sheer terror and grief’? as Carl Plantinga claims with regard to the Titanic. 19 I agree that most films do tend to offer such therapeutic narrative or cathartic closure as does the Elementarteilchen, but I strongly disagree with the obligation to do so. Take for instance Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń, which is indeed traumatic and places the massacre at the end of the text, without offering any goodbye-relief for the audience. However, the controversies about the Katyń film remind one of the inevitable political responsibilities when handling collective trauma. Wajda ascribes the decline of social, political films to the changed role of cinema. Such films require a larger audience in order to have a social reception, whereas today individual watching is more popular. 20 Wajda’s second argument refers to financial reasons, which are also relevant in the case of Elementarteilchen,

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__________________________________________________________________ as it h ad been produced by the famous Constantin Company, which also put restrictions on Roehler’s choices, pushing the film towards melodrama. What Marco Abel pointed out several times ‒ that the German company’s producer, Bernd Eichinger’s ideology is that one ‘cannot film social critique, only melodrama’ ‒ concords with Plantinga’s claim that films should be less harmful to audiences and more delightful. 21 Taking all this into account it is obvious that the entertaining, therapeutic quality of Roehler’s film is a private, assumed perspective, and is not a necessary medium-specific obligation. However, for a thorough understanding of the consequences of the sixties, one needs to undertake the trauma of reading Houellebecq’s book.

Notes 1

Houellebecq, op. cit., p. 23, the translations from Hungarian into English are my own. 2 Ibid., p. 22. 3 J.A. Varsava, ‘Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism’, College Literature, Vol. 32.4, Fall 2005, p. 153. 4 K. Gantz argues that Houellebecq’s postmodern flâneur has the same characteristics as its nineteenth-century’s predecessor and that Houellebecq’s writing is not so innovative as it has been proclaimed. The core of her argumentation is based on comparisons with passages from Baudelaire. K Gantz, ‘Strolling with Houellebecq: The Textual Terrain of Postmodern Flânerie’, Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 28, No. 3, Spring 2005, pp. 149-161. 5 Houellebecq, p. 42. 6 Ibid., p. 169. 7 Ibid., p. 242. 8 Ibid., p. 43. 9 Ibid., p. 44. 10 Ibid., p. 41. 11 Ibid., p. 235. 12 Ibid., p. 31. 13 Ibid., p. 283. 14 B. Dicken even claims that in Houellebecq’s works ‘the object of desire and the abject fully coincide’. B. Dicken, ‘Houellebecq, or the Carnival of Spite’, Journal for Cultural Research, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2007, p. 57. 15 Dicken, 58, argues that ‘all Houellebecq fiction is about sustained acts of spite against sociality and every form of bonding – except, that is, capitalist exchange.’ Dicken describes ressentiment, anger and spite as the principle leitmotivs of Houellebecq’s novels, emphasising that while anger may still manifest itself

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__________________________________________________________________ through policy and can be integrated into society, spite develops into nihilistic (self)destruction, disintegrating the social. Dicken proposes therefore ‘agonistic respect,’ that is ‘tolerance in conflict or conflict in tolerance, which is the only mechanism that can include anger in politics and hold spite at bay.’ p. 72. 16 P. Fuery, ‘Flesh into Body into Subject: The Corporeality of the Filmic Discourse’, New Developments in Film Theory, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2000. 17 D. Bordwell, ‘Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film’, Film Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 3, Spring 2002, p. 16. 18 L. Galántai, ‘A régi csibészek nem ismernek engem meg’, Korunk, Vol. 3, No. 4, August 2011; E. Fám, ‘Sex, Psychoanalysis or How To Get On in Life’, Filmtett, Updated on the 28th of February 2011, Viewed on the 28th of February 2011, http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/1159/szex-pszichoanalizis-avagy-mikent-boldoguljunkaz-eletben-oskar-roehler-elementarteilchen-elemi-reszecskek. 19 C. Plantinga, ‘Trauma, Pleasure and Emotion in the Viewing of Titanic: A Cognitive Approach’, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies, W. Buckland (ed), Routledge, New York and London, 2009, p. 238. 20 N. Hodge, Andrzej Wajda on Katy, Interview, 23rd June 2009, Krakow Post, Updated on the 28th of February 2011, Viewed on the 28th of February 2011, http://www.krakowpost.com/article/1388. 21 M. Abel, ‘The State of Things Part Two: More Images for a Post-Wall German Reality: The 56th Berlin Film Festival’, Senses of Cinema, 2006, No. 39, Viewed on the 29th of March 2011, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/festivalreports/berlin2006/. Cf. also M. Abel, ‘Failing to Connect: Itineration of Desire in Oskar Roehler’s Postromance Films’, New German Critique, Vol. 37, No. 1, Winter 2010, p. 95.

Bibliography Abel, M., ‘The State of Things Part Two: More Images for a Post-Wall German Reality: The 56th Berlin Film Festival’. Senses of Cinema. No. 39, 2006, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/festival-reports/berlin2006/. ––, ‘Failing to Connect: Itineration of Desire in Oskar Roehler’s Postromance Films’. New German Critique. Vol. 37, No. 1, Winter 2010, pp. 75-99. Bordwell, D., ‘Visual Style in Contemporary American Film’. Film Quarterly. Vol. 55, No. 3, Spring 2002, pp. 16-28. Dicken, B., ‘Houellebecq, or the Carnival of Spite’. Journal for Cultural Research. Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2007, pp. 57-73.

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__________________________________________________________________ Fám, E., ’Sex, Psychoanalysis or How To Get on in Life’. Filmtett. 2007, http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/1159/szex-pszichoanalizis-avagy-mikent-boldoguljunkaz-eletben-oskar-roehler-elementarteilchen-elemi-reszecskek. Fuery, P., ‘Flesh into Body into Subject: The Corporeality of the Filmic Discourse’. New Developments in Film Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2000. Galántai, L., ‘A régi csibészek nem ismernek engem meg’. Korunk. Vol. 3, No. 4, August 2011. Gantz, K., ‘Strolling with Houellebecq: The Textual Terrain of Postmodern Flânerie’. Journal of Modern Literature. Vol. 28, No. 3, Spring 2005, pp. 149-161. Hodge, N., Andrzej Wajda on Katy. Interview. 23rd June 2009. Krakow Post, http://www.krakowpost.com/article/1388. Houellebecq, M., Elemi részecskék [Atomised]. Magvető, Budapest, 2001. Plantinga, C., ‘Trauma, Pleasure and Emotion in the Viewing of Titanic: A Cognitive Approach’. Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies. Buckland, W. (ed), Routledge, New York and London, 2009. Varsava, J.A., ‘Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism’. College Literature. Vol. 32.4, Fall 2005, pp. 145-167. Filmography Elementarteilchen. 113 min., German, 2006, dir. Roehler, O., Script: Roehler, O., Writer: Houellebecq, M., Actors: Ulmen, C., Harfouch, C., Potente, F., Tabatabai, J., Gedeck, M., Bleibtreu, M., Hoss, N., Kriener, U. and Ochsenknecht, U. Cinematography: Koschnick, C.-F. Imola Mikó is PhD candidate at the Hungarian Literary Studies Department of the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She led seminars on Contemporary Hungarian and World Literature. She is currently writing her thesis on the representation of ill bodies in contemporary literature and film. The author wishes to thank for the financial support provided by the program cofinanced by THE SECTORAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAM FOR HUMAN

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__________________________________________________________________ RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT, Contract POSDRU 6/1.5/S/4 – ‘DOCTORAL STUDIES, A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH IN SOCIO-ECONOMY AND HUMANITIES’.

Trauma and the Condition of the Postmodern Identity Danielle Mortimer Abstract Trauma studies have been employed as a way to understand a l arge variety of contemporary events. One area where trauma studies have become particularly pertinent is in relation to postmodern culture. Critics who make the link between trauma and the postmodern argue that it is a belated attempt to express the trauma of previous events such as the Holocaust and the Second World War. They attempt to locate the trauma of the postmodern within a historical framework. This chapter will explore the links between the postmodern and trauma studies in an alternate way. It will argue that trauma studies can be used to show how and why the postmodern is not a response to a previous traumatic event, but constitutes a current traumatic event in itself. This concept of the postmodern arises from JeanFrançois Lyotard’s The Inhuman. As with previous studies of the links between the postmodern and trauma, Lyotard, and subsequently this chapter, figure the connection largely through the timeframe of the traumatic. A traumatic experience can be considered as that which is understood later – often too late, after the event has ceased. Consequently, these events cause a rupture in the understanding of the contemporary experiences of those to whom they occur. This rupture has led to a struggle within postmodern literature to represent the postmodern, which has alienated both postmodern society and its literature, since they are unable to form an identity that relates to it, or has a recognised and understood place within it. This chapter will look at the struggle to represent the postmodern-as-trauma in Bret Easton Ellis’ 2005 novel Lunar Park, in which the individual, personal trauma of the narrator is intertwined with the cultural trauma of the postmodern condition. Key Words: Postmodernism, trauma, Ellis, reading, seduction theory, Lyotard. ***** In recent years, there has been a s urge in literary critics who approach their chosen authors, texts, or subjects through the perspective of trauma theories. In the past ten years alone, trauma theories have been applied to literature from Shakespearian drama to contemporary children’s tales, from China to Ireland, from the 16th century to postmodernity, and from slavery to the Second World War. This literary shift towards the traumatic is unsurprising and feels inevitable given its pervasive nature at present. The term ‘trauma,’ and the ideas that surround it, have moved outside psychoanalytic circles, being called into use in the courts of law, in politics, in support of movements such as feminism, in the plethora of - often bestselling - autobiographies of traumatic childhoods by

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__________________________________________________________________ celebrity and non-celebrity writers, and as images within the media. Trauma and its after-effects are now a visible presence in everyday life. In this chapter, I will explore one of the most problematic parts of the literary engagement with trauma theories - problematic in terms of disrupting general, or established, literary practice: the conflict that resides at the core of the relationship between theories of postmodernism and theories of trauma. My interest in this conflict arose from an attempt to read the 2005 novel Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis through theories of trauma. This attempt appeared reasonable, since Lunar Park contains many features that literary and life-story theorists have identified as characteristic of trauma narratives. Lunar Park is a hard book to describe; the narrator is called Bret Easton Ellis and shares various traits with his namesake, such as a successful career as a writer (he is said, like the real Ellis, to have written the novels Less Than Zero, American Psycho, etc.). The narrator’s troubled paternal relationship is said by the real Ellis to be based on his own relationship with his father. The narrator’s story begins to diverge from the real author’s when it is revealed that he had dated a famous actress and, with her, fathered a son. The real author is childless. From now on, I will refer to the real author as Ellis, and the narrator as Bret, to avoid confusion. The story is set in the suburban house the narrator moves to when he decides (when their son is a teenager) to finally marry the actress and set up home with her. In a first person narrative, Bret details how his alcoholism and drug addictions spiral out of control, how he struggles to connect to his son, and how the ghost of his father haunts the house. Lunar Park is modelled on the Stephen King framework of horror writing, but it also works in a postmodern way to tie the criticism most associated with horror - psychoanalysis - into the story as it is being told. The question raised most insistently by the novel itself is, where does the haunting take place - in Bret’s head, or in Bret’s house? In his psychical, or in his actual reality? The novel seemed ripe for a t rauma reading as it is based around numerous series of repetitions, and repetition is the key feature of trauma for literary critics, as will be discussed in more detail later. Bret also narrates using the stylistics of one who has suffered trauma, and is struggling both to speak about it, and process it. Bessel van der Kolk, among others, argues that traumatic memories do not exist in the past as memories that can be constructed and reconstructed into conscious language, but as intrusions that take over the sensory present. 1 This can be seen in Bret’s representations of events and characters. For example, in his representation of his father, Robert, there is a symbolic connection to the sun that is maintained throughout the novel. The presence of Robert’s ghost is signified by the fact that Bret’s ‘house was sunstruck with light,’ and by ghostly snatches of the song, ‘The Sunny Side of the Street.’ 2 Robert is figured as a series of bodily sensations that overtake and overwhelm Bret’s experience of his present corporeal world at the time they appear.

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__________________________________________________________________ Lunar Park’s narrative, I concluded, shows what Gadi BenEzer calls the ‘signals’ 3 of trauma and reveals a struggle to communicate that Shoshana Felman locates in literary narratives of trauma. 4 Thus, the application of a t rauma theory should, I believed, have opened the text up nicely. Instead, the text shut me down at every turn. The text resisted this type of reading; it had the characteristics that should make it ideal to be read in this manner; it just did not work. The next step was to give up on that. Another theoretical perspective I had planned to focus on was postmodernism, since Ellis is considered to be a postmodernist writer. Cover, I thought, all bases. I read round the theorists of the postmodern and postmodernism, and discovered in the ideas of Jean-François Lyotard’s book, The Inhuman, clues as to why I could not read Lunar Park directly through a traumatic perspective. When reading a narrative of trauma, it is the original event that is of exceptional importance in guiding the interpretation. The main art of reading through trauma theories is to connect the original event to its repetitions. This can be done either by tracing the original trauma through its repetitions (as Felman has shown one can attempt to do in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw 5 and Roland Barthes has achieved - albeit not with a trauma-study motive in mind - in Honoré de Balzac’s Sarrasine). 6 Alternatively the literary critic may come to understand the nature and importance of the repetitions through knowing the original trauma and charting the way its representation alters throughout the text (as one can do in Maurice by E.M. Forster, or as David Musselwhite has shown in relation to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles). 7 To construct an identity for a text through its links with trauma theories, therefore, the text needs, preferably, to actually include a traumatic event. This, I began to realise, was what was missing in Lunar Park. It was a narrative with all the characteristics of trauma, except for the traumatic event. Why, I wondered, does Lunar Park not have one, even though it is structured as a narrative of trauma? Enter Lyotard, who suggests that in a postmodernist text, such as Lunar Park, the trauma that it tries to represent is the loss of origins itself – which is one of the conditions of postmodernity. To understand how the notions of postmodernity, postmodernism and trauma can be said to work together it is necessary, as Lyotard himself does, to return to the seduction theory Sigmund Freud abandoned in 1887. The seduction theory looked at how a young girl who was abused was traumatised because the seduction came before she had acquired enough knowledge to understand what was happening. This real seduction was thought to initiate a complex, diphasic too soon to comprehend/too late to prevent timescale of traumatic experience of the seductive event. This temporal structure, the duality between too soon and too late, comes to the forefront in Lyotard’s work in The Inhuman, where he uses an essentially seductive traumatic timescale to describe the postmodern as an event, a trauma, in itself.

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__________________________________________________________________ Lyotard’s postmodern ‘event,’ as with a seductive event, causes a rupture and opening in the boundaries that surround the limits of knowledge at the time in which the event occurs. As is also made explicit in the seductive timeframe, Lyotard argues that when a happening occurs, it becomes an ‘event’ precisely because it comes too soon in the development of that person or society’s knowledge for it to be understood as it happens. It instead takes place outside the scope of knowledge that exists within that situation. Lyotard argues that ‘[w]hat is already known cannot, in principle, be experienced as an event.’ 8 It has to come, as with the initial seductive event, too soon – before there is enough knowledge available to accommodate and understand it. Lyotard writes that ‘[i]t is always too soon or too late to grasp the present itself and present it. Such is the specific and paradoxical constitution of the event. That something happens, the occurrence, means that the mind is disappropriated.’ 9 For Lyotard, a breach is caused within the mind of a society or a self by the gap that exists between what has occurred and how it can be understood at the time it takes place. He writes that ‘[t]he event makes the self incapable of taking possession and control of what it is.’ 10 As in the seduction theory, in Lyotard’s postmodern there is a high degree of alienation from the self/society because the self/society, as it is constituted by the event, is not understood. The condition of understanding the postmodern is therefore, for Lyotard, essentially severed from those who live in conditions of postmodernity while it exists as an event. The latent period (as Freud terms it in his seduction theory) that Lyotard sees as existing between the understanding of the event and the time it takes place means that an event - here of postmodernism - can only be understood when it has ceased to be an event. To cease to be an event, or a t raumatic event, within a literary reading, however, there needs to be a return to the origins - an understanding of the origins. This is not to suggest that all literary trauma-based readings of narrative hark back to Freud’s notion of phylogenetic inheritance, where bygone events are thought to shape human identity for all time. The notion of what trauma is, the possible responses to trauma and the identities it helps construct are shown by trauma theories to be fluid, contextual and ever-changing in response to different calls. However, in the application of trauma to literature, the trend has been to contextualise in terms of the relationship between the original event and its repetitions, and so for literary critics, however progressive, there has been a need to make this return. Critics have tried to resolve the conflict between postmodern and trauma theories by arguing that the postmodern originates in specific traumatic events. This origin has been located in the Second World War, in the Holocaust, in the assassination of JFK, or in more recent events, such as 9/11. However, postmodernist literature shows a resistance to validate the concept of origins, and this historicising position is severely undermined by the fact that a common original traumatic event cannot be located as a focused repetition throughout the

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__________________________________________________________________ body of postmodernist texts. Most postmodernist trauma-based texts, such as Lunar Park, are still structured around the traumatic notion of repetition. What exactly, then, is being repeated in a postmodernist narrative such as Lunar Park? As noted, it is always the original event of trauma that is thought to be repeated in trauma literature so that a literary critic’s main interest in relation to the fact of repetition is not simply that it is undertaken, but the identification of what is being repeated. In postmodernist literature the concept of repetition acts differently. If the postmodern is seen as an event that has disrupted the current mind-frame of postmodern society and its individuals, it can be argued that a postmodern text that reacts to this society does not offer anything to supply this demand. I t instead presents a t ype of traumatic event that connects to Baudrillard’s concept of the hyperreal, where reproduction loses contact with the origin of the real. This can be seen at work in Lunar Park, a notable example coming at the novel’s beginning. The opening line of Lunar Park is repeated twice; once at the physical start of the novel on page one, where it is presented out of context and under discussion about its effectiveness as an opening line, and then again in the second chapter (beginning on page 45) - at what the narrator - and supposed writer of the text, since he is said to have written Ellis’ body of texts - Bret, claims to be the beginning of his novel of Lunar Park. This aligns the novel with the state of the hyperreal, where what is represented is ‘always already reproduced,’ but never originates. 11 For the reader, the second time this line is used in the novel, it is a reproduction of the first. However, for Bret, when it is used on page one of the physical novel, it is already a reproduction of what he regards as the true beginning of his novel, Lunar Park. Thus the novel begins (twice) with a reproduction that has no origin; there is no original (real) beginning to Lunar Park, so the origin of the text itself has been lost. Techniques that characterise the postmodern, such as parody and pastiche, can likewise be thought of as reproductions of something lost. A main drive behind these reproductions, Fredric Jameson argues, is that postmodern culture has an ‘indiscriminate appetite for dead styles and fashions; indeed for all the styles and fashions of a d ead past.’ 12 The description of the postmodern as a period of indiscriminate repetition of that which has already died, and whose death is constantly being reproduced rather than new life being created, coincides with what Jacqueline Rose identifies as ‘[t]he psychic time of trauma’ when ‘things do not go forward but repeat.’ 13 The repetitious nature of trauma means that it is characterised by circularity, so that the trauma is repeated over and over, circling the central event, generally without directly touching it. In the postmodern, trauma loses its centre as there is no longer an origin to repeat, to circle, only reproductions of that which has no specific origins but has been recycled again and again. Postmodernist traumatic literature thus ceases to be driven by origins and works instead through the idea of the hyperreal. The main repercussion of this is that, as the trauma is reproduced without an origin, or rather, with a lost origin, it

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__________________________________________________________________ also never terminates, since trauma in literature is generally resolved by a return to its origins. The trauma of the postmodernist text can therefore be argued to be the trauma of the hyperreal; it endlessly reproduces. Lunar Park is constructed around this constant reproduction of its own loss of origins. No specific traumatic event can be found repeated consistently throughout the novel: instead the repetition of multiple events occurs within the text, with none marked by the narrator or the author as more important than any other. The novel is composed of repetitions of different events, and versions of events, that do not link together, but clash with and contradict one another. This inability to discover the original trauma disrupts the ability of the literary critic to perform their usual act of connectivity between the original trauma and its repetitions, as no connection between one event and the rest of the narrative can be successfully sustained throughout the novel without being destroyed by other, contradictory stories. The literary critic must therefore learn to read postmodernist trauma narratives in another way. To learn to accept the loss of origins that characterises postmodernist literature and the postmodernist condition of identity at present, and to read a postmodernist trauma narrative like Lunar Park in another way; to abandon the usual act of connecting the repetitions of a trauma to its original that exists in the past and read trauma as a present part of a literary narrative. To read trauma as a journey that is being undertaken within the telling of the tale, rather than as a journey that has already been completed and is merely being represented.

Notes 1

B.A. van der Kolk and O. van der Hart, ‘The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma’, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, C. Caruth (ed), John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995, pp. 158-182. 2 B.E. Ellis, Lunar Park, Picador, London, 2006, p. 353. 3 G. BenEzer, ‘Trauma Signals in Life Stories’, Trauma and Life Stories: International Perspectives, K. Lacy, S. Leydesdorff and G. Dawson (eds), Routledge, London, 1999, p. 34. 4 S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, Routledge, New York, 1992. 5 S. Felman, ‘Turning the Screw of Interpretation’, Literature and Psychology: The Question of Reading Otherwise, S. Felman (ed), Yale French Studies, New Haven, 1977. 6 R. Barthes, S/Z, Jonathan Cape, London, 1975. 7 D. Musselwhite, Thomas Hardy: Megamachines and Phantasms, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2003. 8 J.-F. Lyotard, The Inhuman, Polity, Cambridge, 1991, p. 65. 9 Ibid., p. 59. 10 Lyotard, op. cit., p. 59.

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J. Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, Sage Publications, London, 1993, p. 73. 12 F. Jameson, ‘Nostalgia for the Present’, Literary Theories: A Reader and a Guide, J. Wolfreys (ed), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1999, p. 401. 13 J. Rose, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, Virago, London, 1991, p. 110.

Bibliography Barthes, R., S/Z. Jonathan Cape, London, 1975. Baudrillard, J., Symbolic Exchange and Death. Sage Publications, London, 1993. BenEzer, G., ‘Trauma Signals in Life Stories’. Trauma and Life Stories: International Perspectives. Lacy, K., Leydesdorff, S. and Dawson, G. (eds), Routledge, London, 1999. Ellis, B.E., Lunar Park. Picador, London, 2006. Felman, S. and Laub, D., Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. Routledge, New York, 1992. Felman, S., ‘Turning the Screw of Interpretation’. Literature and Psychology: The Question of Reading Otherwise. Felman, S. (ed), Yale French Studies, Haven, 1977. Jameson, F., ‘Nostalgia for the Present’. Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide. Wolfreys, J. (ed), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1999. Lyotard, J.-F., The Inhuman. Polity, Cambridge, 1991. Musselwhite, D., Thomas Hardy: Megamachines and Phantasms. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2003. Rose, J., The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. Virago, London, 1991. van der Kolk, B.A. and van der Hart, O., ‘The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma’. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Caruth, C. (ed), John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995.

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__________________________________________________________________ Danielle Mortimer is a PhD student at the University of Essex. Her interests are in contemporary US fiction and literary theory. Her current research project examines the role of the reader in Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park through the theories of J. Laplanche and J-B. Pontalis, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Wolfgang Iser.\

Writing Torture’s Remnants: Sovereign Power, Affect and the War on Terror Michael Richardson Abstract American use of torture in the war on terror, what is routinely sanitised as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ has not received significant literary attention. Writing about torture and its traumatic affects is made difficult by torture’s assault on subjectivity, language and narrative. In its obsession with not piercing the flesh, American torture renders bodies in their entirety – social and political, flesh and blood – utterly subject to sovereign power and makes precarious the very possibility of a speaking subject. Narratives are ruptured and produced; after, the event remains without closure, unable to become memory. This chapter takes an inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere, grounding its analysis in examples from literature, documentary cinema, memoir and confidential correspondence with an anonymous American military intelligence officer, and exploring the problem of writing the traumatic remnants of that torture. Agamben’s work on sovereignty and biopower is used to show how bodies become wholly penetrated by American power, while affect theory, following both Tomkins and Deleuze, provides the conceptual apparatus for an expanded understanding of bodies, and for exploring relations between tortured and torturing bodies. The author’s own fictional workin-progress on detention and torture during the war on terror frames both the challenges and possibilities in the practice of writing the consequences of torture. The work of Felman and Laub on testimony, and that of Agamben on what he calls ‘neither the dead nor the survivors’ but ‘what remains between,’ provide the basis for an ethic of writing built on the traces of trauma, the remnants of torture that are ever-present in bodies, yet to become memory. Key Words: Torture, creative writing, war on terror, affect theory, power, narrative, Agamben. ***** The war on terror is something new. Its name alone is revealing: a war not on another state or crime or drugs or even terrorism, but a war on an affect. On terror itself. As if the only way to banish the fear erupting from 9/11 were to take up arms against it. Can we be surprised that in a war that is as much discursive as material, American torture is sanitised as ‘enhanced interrogation?’ Or that it is given a legal edifice and scientific façade, and considered somehow humane because it consists of sleep deprivation rather than electrocution; waterboarding, not hot pokers; stress positions, not the rack. In refusing to pierce the flesh such torture seeks to take up

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__________________________________________________________________ the body whole, to make the entirety of being its victim, and reinscribe its own power and security. Narratives are ruptured, written and written over; after, the act remains without closure, resists representation and is unable to be made memory. How, then, to write and write creatively of such torture? In this chapter I interrogate the dynamics of American state torture during the war on terror, both in terms of power and the affective relation of bodies, to suggest an ethic of writing its traumatic remnants in fiction. 1. Power and the Tortured Body In modernity, with more of life continually made subject to sovereign power, whether through human rights codes or anti-terror surveillance laws, the immediate potential of humanity is, increasingly, to be cast into a state of exception; a space in which law no longer applies yet the force of itself remains. 1 This possibility is central to biopower, which Foucault saw as the fundamental dynamic of modern states. 2 We might think of biopower in Giorgio Agamben’s terms as ‘the concrete ways in which power penetrates subjects' very bodies and forms of life.’ 3 Biopower achieves its pinnacle in what Agamben calls the camp, a p urely biopolitical space lacking any mediation between life and power, epitomised by the Nazi concentration camps where ‘inhabitants were stripped of every political status and wholly reduced to bare life.’ 4 There are no crematoriums at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base or the CIA ‘black sites,’ yet a similarity of form is discernible. 5 They operate as spaces of exception, they seek to make bodies utterly subject to power and it is their status as camp – positioned within states of exception, outside the code but within the force of law – that makes possible the torture chamber. Thus, in a cer tain sense, the torture chamber is a kind of camp writ small: it is this body here subjected to raw sovereign power in this moment now. Survival, a co re requirement of American torture, transforms enemy combatants into symbols of power and security, while affirming to the American state that its ideals remain intact, the flesh has not been pierced. The subject is subsumed into the singularity of American power, making that power real both to itself and to the world. Biopower, then, helps us understand the forces at work on the body but poses a problem, too: how when the end of biopower is subjugation of the subject to power, can such a body speak? 2. Affect in the Torture Chamber Bodies, tortured or otherwise, are flesh, but also political and social, fluid and relational. Deleuze, following Spinoza, suggests that the body is constituted by both the ‘capacity for affecting and being affected.’ 6 Bodies are thus sites of potential unlocked in encounter, in the collision of surfaces, in the affects connecting body to world and world to body. For Silvan Tomkins, affect is not restricted to such Deleuzian abstractions; they are biological, relational and

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__________________________________________________________________ specific. 7 Each involves bodily reactions; they are felt on the surface of the skin, in the movement of the face, the set of the shoulders, the widening of the eyes. They are messy, sticky, visceral; they exist not only in the body but also in the dynamic encounter between one body and another. An encounter in which affects are provoked and incited, amplified and modulated in the in-between of bodies in relation. In the torture chamber four affects dominate. Disgust – the torturer’s disgust at the abject victim, a dehumanising necessary for the infliction of pain, and, too, the victim’s self-disgust. Fear – the victim’s fear of the torturer and of their own weakness, the torturer breathing in that fear, fuelled by it and yet fearful himself of going too far or of failing to break the victim. Shame – the shame of being made abject before another, of subjecting another to such horror, of the other’s body, whether victim or torturer, made violently intimate. And, above and amplified by all of these, there is pain. 8 The victim, writes Jean Améry, of ‘pain through torture experiences his body as never before. In self-negation, his flesh becomes a total reality.’ 9 Indeed, it is pain that confers what Elaine Scarry calls its ‘incontestable reality’ on power and thus makes possible the biopolitical project of torture. 10 More than any other affect, pain is what also renders silent the speaking subject and enacts torture’s violent rupturing of narrative. Pain works against language; exposing its inability to fully integrate bodily experience into representation. Yet pain is contingent, it d epends on the presence of another. 11 This other, the torturer, cannot remain unaffected either. As an American intelligence officer who works with those foreign services that torture on behalf of the United States reveals: ‘You do not need touchy feely people in interrogations.’ 12 Thus he deflects inquiry into himself, retreats into the supposed clarity of national security ideology, and seems to slip unaware over his own emotional silences. His communication skills are outstanding, his capacity for analysis clear, but a paucity of reflection reigns when writing of witnessing trauma. 13 He seeks to limit affect by compartmentalising those horrors; an attempt to prevent affect being amplified in a positive feedback process. Not displaying affect means not being exposed to self-revelation and hence to the cost and consequence, at the level of selfhood, of his actions. In certain acts of torture, in singular moments or over long hours, affects – alone or in shifting complexes – reach a feverish intensity. Such affects do not occur then vanish away. They linger, stick to skin and slide between bodies; eliciting what Tomkins calls ‘scripts for their own containment.’ 14 They not only last but resonate, sediment, mutate with the passage of time. And this has implications for how we not only understand torture and its affect on narrative, but how we might write it.

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. Writing Torture’s Remnants Disrupting the body’s relation to narrative is the purpose of each of the core techniques of American ‘enhanced interrogation.’ Sleep deprivation and erratic scheduling of meals and showers violently disturbs the prisoner’s sense of time. Sensory assault traumatises the relationship between the prisoner and the world. Stress positions prevent the simplest of movements that allow a body to affect and be affected by the world. Waterboarding brings the prisoner to the brink of the complete cessation of narrative. Affect is at work in each instance. Pain of noise and light, of forced standing and convulsing lungs; fear of what is to come, of the unknown next instant; the shame of being made helpless; the disgust inherent to such awful intimacy of self and other. ‘Whoever was tortured,’ writes Jean Améry, ‘stays tortured.’ 15 Felman unpacks this idea further: [Survivors] live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore ... continues into the present and is current in every respect. 16 A sense of self is fractured, rendered unstable. Familiar affective patterns are disrupted; continuity and psychic cohesion are destroyed or deeply wounded; and agency is radically limited. Yet while for the victim coherent narrative is torn asunder, a new narrative is also written – like the sentence of Kafka’s penal colony – onto the body, a narrative of sovereign power. This is the purpose of Winston’s torture in Orwell’s 1984: not only the subjection of the body but, in his final submission to Big Brother, a re-writing of narrative from personal and political to biopolitical. 17 Thus the taxi driver snatched from a road outside Kandahar becomes a terrorist; the failed, bumbling twentieth hijacker becomes an intimate of bin Laden. For writers of fiction, the problem is not simply how to write of torture but how to write torture itself. Not merely its instance, but also its consequence. At issue is a kind of distance: how can any telling ‘bridge’ or ‘speak over, the collapse of bridges, and yet, narrate at the same time the process and event of the collapse?’ 18 One possibility is testimony, such as those given to human rights organisations or written in memoirs. 19 Though powerful and vital, these run up against a cer tain limit: testimony is itself, it says only what it can say. Its conventions distrust introspection or the assertion of meaning. Accounts are delivered in direct language, such as this from the ICRC report on the treatment of detainees in CIA custody: I woke up, naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room … I was transferred to a chair where I was kept shackled … During

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__________________________________________________________________ this time I developed blisters on the underside of my legs due to the constant sitting … 20 An echoing voice emptied of tone and feeling can be heard in the torturer interviewed in the Greek documentary Your Neighbour’s Son, and those of Abu Ghraib in Standard Operating Procedure. 21 As if the violent and sticky sediments of affect prevent the articulation of emotional meaning; for the tortured there is the numbing of trauma while for the torturer, the self-exculpating distance and denial of guilt. Literary writing, I would suggest, has the capacity not to say more than such testimony, but to say something other than it, to unmask not only the experience of torture and the trauma of living with it, but to also engage its dynamics. But how can what is in its very occurrence an assault on narrative be narrated? Writing of the Holocaust, Agamben has this to say: ‘the remnants of Auschwitz – the witnesses – are neither the dead nor the survivors, neither the drowned nor the saved. They are what remains between them.’ 22 What remains between are fragments of narrative, like broken logs tumbling in a fast river, breaking the surface to rear dangerously upwards or strike unseen from below. Peter, the torture survivor of Arthur Koestler’s Arrival and Departure, is literally paralysed by such remnants: his leg, once burned by cigarettes, refuses to move, he is bound to his bed, past is present, rising and falling in intensity. 23 This word remnants recalls too the affective relations of bodies. Not dead remains but something living; capable of metastasising or moving through the body like a shard of glass. Can affect theory help not only to understand what occurs in torture and how it lingers, but, by granting a vocabulary for bodies in relation to one another, also help to write its trauma? An ethic of writing torture, writing its remnants, offers the potential not to displace or supplant testimony, but to draw from it and speak beside it. Part of my doctoral research is a work of fiction that grapples with this problem. My novel begins with two narratives – one of a human rights activist, the other of a young US Army interrogator. A rupture occurs at the centre of the text as one is interrogated and tortured by the other. The continuity of narrative breaks, becomes psych reports, interrogation logs, military orders, newspaper reports, interview transcripts. The structure thus not only shows the rupture of the victim’s narrative, but also the production of new narratives, new truths. The act of torture itself is not narrated directly but lived in its aftermath. Years later, the two men are brought together and the intertwining of their ruptured, re-written and contaminated narratives emerges. Here resides the contagion of torture, its traumatic remnants in the lives of both victim and torturer; its seemingly unending presence within ongoing narratives. Where the first part of the book moves casually between present-tense and past-tense memory, in the latter half the present tense is inescapable. The affects of torture – its pain, fear, shame and disgust –

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__________________________________________________________________ stick, collect and erupt within the narrative; the discursive climate of the war on terror predominates, shapes language and action. The act of torture does not remain unsaid, or to be more precise, it is said in a fragmentary way. My aim is to destabilise the idea that narrative is able to move forward without fragments of torture contaminating it, preventing certain outcomes, and overwhelming, at times, the notion of a self existing solely, even primarily, in the here and now. What ethic of writing fiction, then, is to be drawn from all this? First, resist the urge to tell a simple story of good and evil and embrace the complex reality of torture. Tell the torturer’s story as well as that of the victim, not to elicit sympathy but to create a deeper fictive space for their encounter. Embrace, too, the complexities of guilt, justification, redemption and anger that shape and fold back on the remnants of affect. Second, make choices of language conscious of body, world and the relations between them. Allow emotion to escape the confines of typical subjectivity – ‘he felt shame’ – and become visceral – ‘shame clung to his skin.’ Allow trauma to intrude in the present tense, not flashback; let there be sticky remnants that are not assigned to the past tense of memory but written alongside the now. Third, let the structure of the fiction enact torture’s own rupturing. By beginning – in the process of writing – not with the horror of the act, but with the creation of narratives that are pierced by it, the writing of torture can be grounded in what the act breaks as well as its own destructive mechanics. Fourth, be open to the linkages and surprising interrelations between theory and fiction, between the creative and critical. Whether affect theory, biopower or some other useful thought, it is immensely productive to allow space for theory to emerge – paradoxically, perversely, strangely – in fiction. And, in turn, to allow fiction to speak back to theory, both compensating for its inadequacies and interrogating its propositions. Fifth, remain closely engaged with witnessed reality yet unafraid to move beyond it. Writing about torture, it is easy to be afraid of veering from verified factuality. But fiction’s power resides in its capacity to speak beyond the incontestably real. If fiction is to somehow interrogate or bear witness to American torture, it must negotiate between its own fictiveness and the reality of the war on terror. This ethic of writing grounded in biopower and affect has potential for engaging the messy complexities of torture and its aftermath. If the war on terror is constituted by its own linguistic violence, if the bodies made subject to American power are never wholly sacrificed, if by refusing to pierce the flesh American torture seeks to rupture and reconstitute narrative, then it is incumbent on those who would write torture’s remnants that they embrace an ethic of writing – whether that proposed here or some other – that is conscious of its own messy lack of finality, its own potential for becoming something new, changed, unexpected.

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Notes 1

G. Agamben, State of Exception, trans. K. Attell, University of Chicago Press, Cjicago, 2005, p. 38. 2 M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collége de France, 1977-78, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. 3 G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998, p. 5. 4 Ibid., p. 171. There is a fine line between using the Holocaust, on the one hand, as a paradigm for every political horror and, on the other, making it so singular that we cannot talk about it as anything other than itself. 5 D. Gregory, ‘The Black Flag: Guantanamo Bay and the Space of Exception’, Geography Annual, Vol. 88, No. B, 2006. 6 G. Deleuze, ‘Ethology: Spinoza and Us’, Incorporations, Zone, New York, 1992, p. 626. 7 E. Kosofsky Sedgwick and A. Frank, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader, Duke University Press, Durham, 1995, p. 57. 8 Whether pain is an affect or not is open to significant debate. I would note here the liberated reading of affect and emotion in the work of Sara Ahmed. Her work on the contingency of pain is reference below. 9 J. Améry, At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, trans. S. Rosenfeld and S.P. Rosenfeld, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1980, p. 33. 10 E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World / Elaine Scarry, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985, p. 27. 11 S. Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 28-29. 12 J.M. Arrigo and S.E. Brewer, ‘Places that Medical Ethics can’t Find: Preliminary Observations on why Health Professionals Fail to Stop Torture in Overseas Counterterrorism Operations’, Interrogations, Forced Feedings and the Role of Health Professionals: New Perspectives on International Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and Ethics, R. Goodman and M.J. Roseman (eds), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009, p. 6. 13 I am most grateful to Jean Maria Arrigo of the Project for Ethics and Art in Testimony for allowing me to view her privately-held correspondence, unpublished and thus confidential, with an anonymous military intelligence liaison officer. Additional copies of selected documents are held by the Hoover Intelligence Archive and Bancroft Library. 14 Sedgwick and Frank, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader, p. 180. 15 Améry, At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, p. 34.

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S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, Routledge, New York, 1992, p. 199. 17 G. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1949. 18 Felman and Laub, op. cit., p. 199. 19 To mention a few such memoirs: M. Kurnaz, Five Years of my Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008; D. Hicks, Guantanamo: My Journey, William Heinemann, North Sydney, N.S.W., 2010; M. Begg, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back, Pocket Books, London, 2008. 20 M. Danner, ‘US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites’, http://www.nybooks. com/articles/22530. 21 J. Flindt Perdersen, Your Neighbour’s Son, Greece, Ebbe Preisler Film/TV aps., 1982; E. Morris, Standard Operating Procedure, Participant Productions, 2008. 22 G. Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, trans. D. Heller-Roazen, Zone Books, New York, 2002, p. 164. 23 A. Koestler, Arrival and Departure, Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK 1969, pp. 6267.

Bibliography Agamben, G., Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Heller-Roazen, D., Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998. —, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Trans. Heller-Roazen, D., Zone Books, New York, 2002. —, State of Exception. Trans. Attell, K., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005. Ahmed, S., The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge, New York, 2004. Améry, J., At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities. Trans. Rosenfeld, S. and Rosenfeld, S.P., Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1980. Arrigo, J.M. and Brewer, S.E., ‘Places that Medical Ethics can’t Find: Preliminary Observations on Why Health Professionals Fail to Stop Torture in Overseas Counterterrorism Operations’. Interrogations, Forced Feedings and the Role of Health Professionals: New Perspectives on International Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and Ethics. Goodman, R. and Roseman, M.J. (eds), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Begg, M., Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back. Pocket Books, London, 2008. Danner, M., ‘Us Torture: Voices from the Black Sites’. 9 April 2009. Accessed 17 March, 2010, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22530. Deleuze, G., ‘Ethology: Spinoza and Us’. Incorporations. Zone, New York, 1992. Felman, S. and Laub, D., Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. Routledge, New York, 1992. Foucault, M., Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collége De France, 1977-78. Senellart, M., Ewald, F. and Fontana, A. (eds), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. Gregory, D., ‘The Black Flag: Guantanamo Bay and the Space of Exception’. Geography Annual. Vol. 88, No. B, 2006, pp. 405-428. Hicks, D., Guantanamo: My Journey. William Heinemann, North Sydney, N.S.W., 2010. Koestler, A., Arrival and Departure. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK, 1969. Kurnaz, M., Five Years of My Life : An Innocent Man in Guantanamo. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008. Morris, E., ‘Standard Operating Procedure’. 116 Minutes: Participant Productions, 2008. Orwell, G., Nineteen Eighty-Four. Harcourt Brace, New York, 1949. Perdersen, J.F., ‘Your Neighbour’s Son’. Ebbe Preisler Film/TV, Greece, 1982. Scarry, E., The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. O xford University Press, New York, 1985. Sedgwick Kosofsky, E. and Frank, A., Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Duke University Press, Durham, 1995.

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__________________________________________________________________ Michael Richardson is completing a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney. His research into narrative, bodies and torture during the war on terror is comprised of both a novel and an academic thesis. He received an MSc (International Relations) from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales. Most recently, he was a speechwriter in Canadian politics.

Because Memory is also a Prison: The Holocaust and the Question of Representing Trauma in the Memoirs of Ruth Elias and Ruth Klüger Anabela Valente Simões Abstract Holocaust representations performed by male survivors such as Primo Levi or Elie Wiesel became the ‘norm’ in the aftermath of WWII. Nonetheless, and despite the unquestionable canonical value, their narratives are not unique icons of the marking and traumatic experiences of that particular past. In actual fact, this historical moment became representation object for many female authors who, after overcoming a long latency period in which it was not yet possible to face trauma and work it through, finally found the strength to break the silence and tried to come to terms with the past through the process of writing. In this essay I intend to examine two distinctive autobiographical accounts written by women. On the one hand, Ruth Elias - who as a young Jewish from Czechoslovakia was taken to Auschwitz while several months pregnant - depicts with painful detail the experience of survival in the Nazi camps in her internationally acclaimed memoir Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben. On the other hand, Austrian Jewish survivor Ruth Klüger accomplishes the following tasks in her praised novel weiter leben: the narration of her traumatic, haunted memories of the past and, simultaneously, an acute reflection upon past and contemporary complex issues. Herein Klüger assumes a p rovocative, sarcastic and defying attitude by examining sensitive matters such as disrupted parental relationships during the Jewish persecution, current complex relationships between Jews and Germans and even some Jewish patriarchal conventions which, according to the author’s perspective, seem to deny women their right to hold traumatic memories. Key Words: Holocaust, identity, memory, trauma, female writing. ***** The traumatic experience of the Holocaust has long been represented mostly by male authors. In actual fact their experiences and memories became the ‘norm’ and, therefore, women’s experiences, some of which are inevitably different, have been relegated to a lower priority in contrast to the mainstream. 1 In reality and despite the fact that both men and women indeed recall the same violent and unique scenario, there are some specificities that need to be taken into account and which, naturally, are not present in the narratives of canonical authors such as, for example, Jean Améry, Elie Wiesel, Imre Kertész or Primo Levi – who, in his high acclaimed autobiographical account If this is a man, actually acknowledges he does not know what might have happened to women. 2 Though controversial, the thesis of the distinctiveness of women’s perspective is supported, among others, by one

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__________________________________________________________________ of the most important exponents of the Holocaust Studies, the historian Raul Hilberg, who considered that ‘the road to annihilation was marked by events that affected men as man and women as woman.’ 3 Female writing unveiled, on the one hand, the double discrimination women suffered from - they were Jews, victims of a totalitarian and racist regime and, simultaneously, they were women in a patriarchal and misogynous society. On the other hand, these narratives include material about experiences that are unique to women, such as the vulnerability to rape, pregnancy and childbirth, amenorrhea and its psychological effects, experiences of nakedness and loss of femininity. Their accounts frequently also focus on women’s socialisation strategies (friendship, bonding and mutual support within the group in opposition to the lone wolf behaviour of men) as a means to live through their ordeal. Particularly from the late 1980s onwards, a tendency to represent the past from a female perspective has finally emerged. The fact that only later in life some women have voiced their experience may be related to the fact that many survivors have endured their traumatic memories with muted pain, thus postponing a necessary work of mourning. Silence did not mean that the trauma was overcome though; it meant more likely that past experiences were so overwhelming that it was not (yet) possible to confront them, to give voice to decades of haunting memories and thoughts, that is, to work them through. The number of autobiographic accounts that record those past experiences - frequently dedicated to the grandchildren and often regretting how the second generation was kept out of these memories - demonstrates that the shield of silence had been finally broken. From various accounts about the Holocaust experience, I chose to present here two narratives which address the Shoah in a different fashion and distinctive level of complexity: Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben and weiter leben, written by Ruth Elias and Ruth Klüger, respectively. Ruth Elias was a young Jewish woman from Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, when she was sent to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. 4 In her book Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben - translated into English in 1998 under the title Triumph of Hope - Elias narrates her childhood memories, the horrors she has endured in the Nazi camps, the aftermath of imprisonment and the difficult adjustment to normal 5 life in Israel. Elias recalls how she survived a tremendously traumatic experience and how she survived the survival itself, for example, how she coped with the remaining wounds, with the trauma, throughout the years. It took Elias more than four decades to write down her memories, which commence as follows: Time is passing quickly for me these days. I tend to look ahead, for the years have taught me not to look back. But from time to time I do – and then the immediate and pervasive sensation I have is of the concentration camp. It haunts me and has left deep scars. I cannot rid myself of it, even though I have tried all my

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__________________________________________________________________ life to push it aside. It keeps coming back, so I am condemned to live with it. I can’t describe the sensation to anyone who has not gone through this kind of hell; after all, nobody can comprehend the incomprehensible. 6 Elias’ autobiography should be read as a representative document of Holocaust testimony. Its language is direct and simple. The tone is clear, exact, with no great aesthetical and literary ambitions. It rather aims at reporting with detail and denunciating the facts, leaving philosophical reflections or metaphoric and symbolic constructions aside. Herein the reader finds numerous descriptions of the difficult day-to-day life such as, for example, inhuman and humiliating situations or the unhygienic conditions of the camps. 7 Specific female perspective is particularly depicted in this account. Elias describes the violence of women’s ‘medical’ examinations (whose real objective was to find out if inmates had hidden valuables in her bodies), experiences of nakedness, prostitution and rape, forced abortions and also medical experiments with newborns. 8 In fact Ruth Elias was pregnant when she was put in a cattle-wagon and sent to Auschwitz. Eventually she gave birth with the help of a Polish mid-wife, without water or towels. Elias was then chosen to participate in an ‘experiment’ conducted by the physician Josef Mengele, and in the end she lost her baby. 9 In the camp she met Kurt Elias, who would become her husband. After the war she returned to Prague in an attempt to find members of her family; upon finding that none of her immediate relatives had survived, she became seriously depressed and was institutionalised. Aware of the darkening political situation in Czechoslovakia under the Soviets, and the continuing anti-Semitism, Ruth and Kurt Elias decided to emigrate to Israel and restart their lives there. Jewish author Ruth Klüger was born in Vienna in 1931. After liberation she emigrated to the United States, where she became a Professor of German Literature at the University of California. Klüger decided to write her memories in Germany when, in 1988, she was involved in an accident. This incident, which in her subconscious made her feel again victim of German aggression, led to a confrontation with the trauma left by the concentration camp experience, the loss of family members and the process of surviving her own traumatic memories. Weiter leben - to live on - was published in 1992. The book was received with acclaim in the German literary world, won prestigious literary prizes and was recognised as one of the most important works on the subject. Due to its great success the book was translated and published in several different countries. Nonetheless an English translation was not available. And this was an expressed wish of the author herself, who admitted in an interview that she indeed planned an English version, but not before the death of her mother, who was not pleased with her own description in weiter leben. 10

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__________________________________________________________________ The narrative commences with a poignant statement: ‘Their secret was death, not sex.’ This short line reveals eight-year-old Klüger’s interest in overhearing the adults’ conversations about ‘forbidden’ topics such as torture, pain and death. Satirically Klüger replaces one’s notion of inappropriate subjects for children ‘sex’- with the new, circumstantially more important one: ‘death.’ This opening is particularly significant because Klüger establishes the tone for the rest of the text: unconventional, provocative and irreverent approach. Klüger’s attitude to her past is indeed different from other accounts: whereas other survivors - Elias, for example -choose to recall the details of their experience, she looks at larger issues behind the concentration camps and the post-war period. In weiter leben Klüger wrote down her Auschwitz memories, her thoughts, fears, feelings of guilt and also her rage, in German and for Germans as she unequivocally declares in her book. weiter leben also ‘challenges the notion that the Nazi legacy concerns only the German mainstream. Klüger’s work illustrates that Jews too need to come to terms with their past, with the Holocaust, with Germany, and with the Germans.’ 11 On the whole, weiter leben intends, on the one hand, to challenge Germans to assume responsibility for their past and, on the other hand, it speaks to Jews, who are advised to follow in the author’s footsteps in reflecting on, mourning, and integrating the difficulties of their traumatic past. Klüger’s reflections are often revealing of a sense of displacement. Despite being born in Vienna, there seems to be no identification with her Austrian nationality. According to Klüger’s point of view, Vienna represents segregation and her first prison, from which she did not manage to escape. 12 In opposition to Vienna, Theresienstadt is described with a more positive tone; this is the place she somehow loved, that changed the meditative and repressed person she was in Vienna and made her a s ocial being. 13 In the end she considers the German language her only ‘home.’ 14 She is also particularly critical of a set of principles imposed by patriarchal societies. Ironically she declares that her book is meant for women, as men only read books written by other men. 15 She also sarcastically criticises the attitude of her ex-husband who didn’t want her to narrate her wartime memories because these would compete with his own. This was also the moment she understood that every war seems to belong to men, as well as wartime memories seem too. 16 Religion, which she first learned in Theresienstadt, also contributed to this critical point of view. 17 Even though Klüger assumes that religion is indeed part of her identity, she refuses to accept a set of principles and stories she does not believe in and that keep women out of a series of rituals. Therefore she assumes herself as a b ad Jew who soon acknowledged the restrictions of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal Jewish world. 18 In her book Ruth Klüger refers to her mother as someone possessive, authoritarian and presumptuous. Their unconstructive, damaging relationship, which she named ‘mother-daughter-neurosis,’ has influenced Klüger in such a negative way that, according to her view, her ability to be a ( good) mother had

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__________________________________________________________________ been undoubtedly affected. 19 And this is exactly the reason why it took a d ecade for the English version to see the light of day. As her mother was badly hurt by some passages, it would only be after her death, in 2000, that the revised English version would be published under the title Still Alive. 20 As Klüger explains, it ‘is neither a translation nor a new book: it’s another version, a parallel book, if you will for my children and my American students ... I have written this book twice.’ 21 This text preserves some characteristics of the first account but it introduces, as well, important changes and updates acknowledged in the meantime, such as the circumstances of her father’s death, who in the end did not perish in a gas chamber in Auschwitz just like she had always imagined, but was sent in a transport to Latvia and Estonia. 22 It maintains its original structure, but it also excludes a considerable number of passages and chapters. The Epilogue is considerably different. It does not begin with the description of her accident in 1988 but, in its place, she describes what she does best, which is ‘running away’ and with the inherent danger of ‘running in circles,’ 23 meaning this, not being able to escape from her personal story, from her ‘ghosts’: the memory of her late father and brother. Here she recognises that her memory is also a prison, from which she never managed to escape throughout her entire life. Another clear difference is the option for not using fictional names, which contributes to the more personal, honest and forgiving tone of Still Alive. Her German intellectual friend Christoph, for example, is identified as the famous German writer Martin Walser. 24 Of most importance is also the circumstance that while weiter leben was addressed to Germans and dedicated to her Göttingen friends, the addressees of Still Alive are her American students and in its initial dedication a h omage is paid to her mother. This immediately unfolds the conciliatory tone we find in this new version where she seems to recognise that her mother’s feelings of guilt towards the death of her brother indeed moulded their relationship. She also forgives - but does not forget - certain facts of the past, like for instance, not having been allowed to flee to Palestine and thus avoid deportation. 25 In the end, Klüger talks about her four-year old granddaughter and the feeling of triumph because her mother eventually had ‘a human death, because she had survived and outlived the evil times and had died in her own good time, almost a hundred years after she [great-granddaughter] was born.’ 26 She closes her (second) memories with a peaceful, bright picture of her mother and granddaughter seizing joyful moments. It seems that a message of reconciliation and acceptance has been sent and that it is finally possible to close the circle ... or maybe not, as this second account proved that along with the present, the past is continuously evolving, proving that memories cannot be fixed in space and time but live on. 27 The fact both authors needed a long time to revisit their past and compose a narrative about their experiences might be related to the fact that in the aftermath of the war survivors try to normalise their lives by repressing the horrors they have

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__________________________________________________________________ endured and witnessed. This pseudo-normality seems to be effective, in the sense that the survivors’ first priority is to take care of their own physical recovery: as it can jeopardise their own physical reconstruction, survivors just know they can neither mourn nor feel loss. Despite the seeming normality, the truth is that the psychological self-reconstruction is continuously delayed and, as a co nsequence, responses to the extreme circumstances of the past tend to arise, commonly in the form of repetitive and uncontrollable hallucinations or other phenomena that go beyond normal standards of behaviour. Instead of developing more constructive responses to their feelings, these individuals ‘act out’, i.e. they discharge conflicted mental content by means of action. In other words, these subjects have ‘a tendency to relive the past, to exist in the present as if they were still fully in the past, with no distance from it. They tend to relive occurrences . . . for example, in flashbacks, or in nightmares, or in words that are compulsively repeated.’ 28 For instance, people who were deported in cattle-wagons recurrently feel claustrophobic every time they enter an elevator or a confined area, or they can also feel disturbed when any other images of the present somehow relate to the traumatic memories of the past. In weiter leben Ruth Klüger states that five decades after the war she still feels anxious every time she sees a wagon transporting goods and Ruth Elias recounts how she kept on returning to the source of trauma by repetitively dreaming that she was still sitting in the cattle-wagon and that her family and friends were being gassed. 29 Particularly symptomatic is also the description of the birth of Elias’ second son already in Israel, which demonstrates the depth of the trauma left by the death of her first child in Auschwitz: when the nurse takes the baby from the delivery room, she gets disoriented, starts crying and desperately says that her child should not be taken and murdered. 30 In opposition to this tendency to compulsively repeat past situations, the process of ‘working through’ is another form of dealing with trauma. It can be understood as the act of creating a separation between past traumatic experiences and the present, in other words, ‘the person tries to gain critical distance on a problem, to be able to distinguish past, present and future.’ 31 On the whole, it requires the ability to accept the present independently, to some extent, of the past experiences, and reinvest in life, meaning this, to invest in new objects and allow the mourning process to be carried on. This understanding of trauma may also be considered in the writing of memoirs. In fact, the two processes of ‘acting out’ and ‘working through’ seem to be combined in the act of capturing the trauma in memoirs, towards their final goal, which is dealing with grief and psychic pain. This means that, as the survivor writes about the experiences, this subject acts out and brings the memory into the present, while at the same time working through and using the writing to help both acknowledge and disengage from the past. As a result, the writing of memoirs serves as a tool for managing and accepting past traumatic events, which validates the assumption that ‘all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a

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__________________________________________________________________ story about them.’ 32 By placing experiences into an organised layout of words and chapters, survivors find or construct a sense of meaning for the traumatic events they were subjected to, the past is exorcised and a s ense of catharsis may be eventually attained.

Notes 1

S. Friedländer, ‘Testimony, Narrative, and Nightmare: The Experiences of Jewish Women in the Holocaust’, 1995, Viewed on 06.09.2010, http://www.theverylong view.com/WATH/essays/golden.htm. 2 P. Levi, Se isto é um homem, Lisboa, Editorial Teorema, 1988, p. 18. 3 R. Hilberg, Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden: Die Gesamtgeschichte des Holocaust, Berlin, Olle & Wolter, 1982, p. 126. 4 Ruth Elias was born on October 6, 1922. She died in 2008. 5 Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben was first published in 1988. 6 R. Elias, Triumph of Hope, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1998, p. ix. 7 Ibid., p. 88 8 Ibid., pp. 161-162; pp. 147-148. 9 Ibid., pp. 184-185 10 C. Karich, ‛Eine starke Frau’, Sybille, 1993, pp. 4-93, here 54. 11 D. Lorrenz, Memory and Criticism: Ruth Kluger’s weiter leben, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1993, pp. 207-224, here 208. 12 R. Klüger, weiter leben: Eine Jugend, München, dtv, 1999, p. 19. 13 Klüger, weiter leben, p. 103. 14 I. Heidelberg-Leonard, Ruth Klüger. Weiter leben. Eine Jugend, München, Oldenbourg, 1996, p. 57. 15 Klüger, weiter leben, p. 82. 16 Ibid., p. 236; 12. 17 Ibid., p. 101. 18 Ibid., p. 44. 19 Ibid., p. 56. 20 R. Klüger, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. Feminist Press, New York: 2001, p. 210. 21 Ibid., p. 210. 22 Ibid., p. 40. 23 Ibid., p. 205. 24 Ibid., pp. 164-165. 25 Ibid., p. 57. 26 Ibid., p. 211. 27 C. Schaumann, ‘From ‘weiter leben’ (1992) to ‘Still Alive’ (2001): Ruth Kluger’s Cultural Translation of Her ‘German Book’ for an American Audience’, The German Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 3, 2004, pp. 324-339, here p. 328.

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D. LaCapra, An Interview with Professor Dominick LaCapra: Acting-out and Working-through Trauma, Cornell University, Shoah Resource Center, 1998, pp. 2-3. 29 Klüger, weiter leben, p. 108. Elias, Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben, p. 254. 30 Elias, Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben, pp. 328-329. 31 LaCapra, An Interview with Professor Dominick LaCapra, p. 2. 32 I. Dinesen, Making Stories, Making Selves, Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State University Press, 1993, p. 17.

Bibliography Elias, R., Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben. Piper Verlag, München, 2000. Goldenberg, M., Testimony, Narrative, and Nightmare: The Experiences of Jewish Women in the Holocaust. 1995, Viewed on 06. 09.2010, http://www.theverylong view.com/WATH/essays/golden.htm. Hilberg, R., Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden. Die Gesamtgeschichte des Holocaust. Olle & Wolter, Berlin, 1982. Heidelberger-Leonard, I., Ruth Klüger. Weiter leben. Eine Jugend. Oldenbourg, München, 1996. Klüger, R., weiter leben. Eine Jugend. dtv, München, 1999. —, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. Feminist Press, New York, 2001. LaCapra, D., An Interview with Professor Dominick LaCapra: Acting-out and Working-through Trauma. Cornell University, Shoah Resource Center, 1998. Levi, P., Se isto é um homem. Editorial Teorema, Lisboa, 1988. Linden, R.R., Making Stories, Making Selves. Ohio State University Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1993. Lorenz, D., Memory and Criticism: Ruth Kluger’s weiter leben. University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1993.

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__________________________________________________________________ Schaumann, C., ‘From ‘weiter leben’ (1992) to ‘Still Alive’ (2001): Ruth Kluger’s Cultural Translation of Her ‘German Book’ for an American Audience’. The German Quarterly. Vol. 77, No. 3, 2004, pp. 324-339. Anabela Valente Simões is Professor at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. Her current research interests include: identity and memory studies, trauma studies, representations of the Holocaust, the transgenerational effects of the NationalSocialism.

Collective Trauma in Modern Afrikaans Fiction Cilliers van den Berg Abstract The pre-1994 cultural and socio-political history of South Africa has been widely described as a collective trauma. Not only its long colonial history, but especially twentieth century apartheid is till to day seen as a socio-political trauma which is often schematically represented in terms of clearly identifiable victims and perpetrators, that is in terms of race. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee, set up in 1995 with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman, has been instrumental in setting the tone for the cultural discourse on this trauma. Since the first democratic elections in 1994, literature written in Afrikaans has been in the difficult position of confronting this traumatic past. The most difficult aspect for the Afrikaans writer was, and still is, the moral implications of writing from the position of the perpetrator, at least this would be the set role allocated to him within the South African literary scene. The aim of this chapter is to investigate how this collective trauma has been, and still is, represented in modern Afrikaans literature, especially in recent times. It becomes especially interesting because the position of the ‘Afrikaner’ within modern South African society often is seen as marginalised, which in effect again produces a traumatic effect: the loss of power, the loss of identity and the loss of land. The question to be answered is whether the notion of collective trauma includes some kind of a s ocio-political dynamic which either consciously, or even sub-consciously, can be used in various ways by various groupings within societies marked by historical trauma. Can the loss of Afrikaner identity therefore be perceived as traumatic and in which relation does this question stand with regards to the collective trauma of Apartheid? These questions will be discussed with reference to a few relevant Afrikaans literary texts. Key Words: Trauma, collective trauma, trauma narratives, trauma and literature. ***** 1. Introduction Many of the social, cultural and political narratives about post-Apartheid South African society have been influenced by a collective trauma narrative, originally established during the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s. The focus of my chapter is on the social dynamics of this trauma narrative, in contradistinction to the collective trauma it sets out to represent. It is important to note that there is a difference between trauma and its representation, especially when it is about a traumatic historical incident experienced individually by each victim, but subsequently amalgamated and simplified into one collective narrative. 1 Collective narratives by their very nature are stratified within society

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__________________________________________________________________ and make an impact on various societal levels, not all of which link up directly with the mediation of a primal experience of the original trauma. Although these narratives are not necessarily manipulated by socio-political agents to gain ideological capital, my contention is that collective trauma narratives do have an enormous impact. It does not follow that these narratives are inherently bad, only that they often have detrimental effects, which in a worst-case scenario symptomatically act out the original trauma they merely wanted to represent (or come to terms with) in the first place. 2 The obvious ways in which these narratives are contra-productive would be their use of stereotyping and oversimplification. Stereotyping not only refers to the designation of victims, perpetrators, guilt and atonement within the narrative context, but also to the evaluation of the narrative itself as being necessarily therapeutic and achieving closure. 3 I would not want to criticise the legacy of the TRC, but simply state that the way in which their work was publicly mediated made a subsequent presentation of a monolithic trauma narrative possible. 2. Afrikaans Literature The question that follows is what the collective South African trauma narrative means (meant?) for the contemporary Afrikaans literary field in particular. In contemplating the past, the Afrikaans writer finds himself / herself in a similar position as the German writer in the wake of the Second World War: s/he necessarily writes from the position of perpetrator, notwithstanding the fact that this set role within the collective trauma narrative would in reality probably be much more nuanced. In order to ascertain the effects, it would be necessary not only to analyse the relevant Afrikaans literary texts in order to find common thematic trends, but also to take note of the critical academic discourse within the literary field. 2.1 Literature as Truth and Reconciliation Commission? In 1997 H.P. Van Coller published an article in the journal of the Afrikaans Literary Society called (in translation): ‘The Truth Commission in Afrikaans literature: Afrikaans prose of the nineties.’ In this article he emphasised the trend in the then current fiction of an ‘obsessional interest in and meddling with the past.’ 4 Interestingly enough the time-frame of the proceedings of the TRC roughly coincided with the reaction of Afrikaans writers and academics to the work of the historical narrativists, which had a h uge impact on the Afrikaans literary scene. The gist of the article was that historical truth is and will always remain a chimera, and that efforts to reconstruct this past will fall well short of truth, but might through the construction of the past, present narratives which could give people a voice and could effect change. In short, this was an identification of narrative as first and foremost having a therapeutic quality: the narrative was reconciliatory, but could not represent the whole truth.

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__________________________________________________________________ Having identified various fictional trends which dealt with the past Van Coller suggests that it is the future which is of paramount importance and that the literary narrative should be used as a vehicle to achieve ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung,’ by breaking with the past. The shift of emphasis towards the therapeutic potential has been more in favor of a reconciliatory effort. Whereas Van Coller was very optimistic about the therapeutic potential of the narrative, Philip John wrote an article in which he threw down the gauntlet: ‘Reconciliation, Aufarbeitung, Renaissance, Enlightenment: what does the South African past demand from us?’ John’s argument was that one cannot come to terms with the collective South African trauma by using narrative as a talisman – and neither should Afrikaans texts written with the Apartheid trauma as theme be reductively interpreted in those terms. In retrospect, the point of the whole debate was trying to find answers to questions regarding the reactions of the Afrikaans literature to the collective trauma of the past. Writing from the position of perpetrator, the question was whether any positive contribution could be made. 2.2 Deconstructing / Rewriting the Past Using the narrative as talisman to deal with the traumatic past is foundational to the narrative reconstruction of this selfsame past. 5 What happened with the establishment of a co llective trauma narrative was that the narrative of Apartheid ideology had to be and was deconstructed. This meant that everything kept in place by the Žižekian master signifier, was upturned, including aspects like collective identity, collective memory and collective history. The Afrikaans writer had to rethink an identity founded on a now debunked collective memory, which had been manipulated by an official history. Mixing artistic experimentation with narrativistic explorations of history and narrative, many writers tried to reimagine the South African past, either by retelling the known or discovering unknown petites histoires. And although the stories were told, they were very seldom exhibited as new truths: deconstructing the old was not seen as a firm basis on which to erect new master narratives. 6 A very informative way to write about the reconsidered past was to use the old as a lens for the new. The period of 1999-2002 represented the centenary celebrations of the Anglo-Boer War. Many important novels having the war as backdrop were published around this time, but were now looking at the past which often was venerated in previous historical writing, from a much more critical perspective. Not only were lesser-known stories of Afrikaner brutality told or the traumatised Boer fighters pushed to the forefront of the events. Clear parallels were also drawn between the most recent past and the events of the war, rather to the detriment of the war history than to that of the Apartheid past. A much discussed novel in academic writing, Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz by Christoffel Coetzee is a case in point.

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__________________________________________________________________ Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz is the meta-historiographical story of an Afrikaner (Boer) general in the Anglo Boer War. Important themes in the novel are again the questionability of historical truth, the power of the narrative and the confluence of past and present in the figure of the main character, general Mentz. Interpreted as an evil man who because of his deeds also becomes ‘embodiment of collective guilt,’ parallels have been drawn between the fictional character of Mentz and Eugène de Kock, infamous ‘apartheid assassin.’ 7 By interpreting the novel in this way, a dark cloud is cast not only over the ‘heroic’ past of the Afrikaner, but also the more recent Apartheid past. If anything, the novel represents a disruptive force to any lingering narratives of the previous disposition. Author Christoffel Coetzee himself drew a d irect connection between the TRC hearings and the fictional Mannetjies Mentz of his book. 2.3 Deconstruction of Afrikaner Identity It does not represent a giant leap from reimagining the past to completely losing grip on the notion of one collective history to having to rethink the collective identity, which by many is considered to be a result of the various stories told about the collective selves. Much has been written about the lack of a s tructuring narrative or master signifier in the discourse on Afrikaner identity. It seems as if the collective trauma narrative, with its designated roles of perpetrator and victim, collective guilt, and atonement, has to a large extent been unable to establish itself as a foundational point of departure. This might be symptomatic of historical change and transformation in general, unwillingness to let go of the past, or a r eal and informed critical stance towards what is seen as an overly simplified narrative. One of the ways in which specifically this problem of identity has manifested in literary texts, has been the debunking of the father figure in some Afrikaans fiction of the time. Traditional Afrikaner culture has been described as being very patriarchal, not only in terms of its social structures, but also politically manifested in the attitude towards the Other, the non-white. The latter was placed in the position of subaltern, with the father figure symbol of invested power. 8 Although criticising the stern father figure has certainly been emancipatory, it has also included a sense of a beacon being lost. Others have also focused on another aspect regarding the role of the patriarchy, namely the loss of masculinity as described in the genre of hunting literature. Visagie’s article is called ‘Masculinity and the loss of power in the Afrikaans hunting literature since 1994,’ and that of Beuke-Muir, ‘The vulnerability of the modern man and its manifestation in the prose of Piet van Rooyen,’ Van Rooyen’s fiction is interpreted as symptomatic of a sense of emasculation with regards to the Afrikaner man. But it should be noted that this sense of emasculation and loss of patriarchal power should not only be seen against the background of loss of political power and affirmative action, but also the role of globalisation and the

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__________________________________________________________________ lingering effects of feminism. It further illustrates something of the dynamics of a collective trauma narrative that, in its grip on society, can appropriate many diverse social and cultural developments – thereby taking on the allure of a new master narrative. 2.4 Truth and Reconciliation as New Master Narrative Probably the most famous ‘literary’ text on t he proceedings of the TRC is Country of My Skull, published by Afrikaans poet Antjie Krog. In the last chapter she writes: Against a flood crashing with the weight of a brutalising past on to new usurping politics, the Commission has kept alive the idea of a common humanity. Painstakingly it has chiselled a way beyond racism and made space for all of our voices. 9 It seems to follow that the language of common humanity is also the road the commission has chiselled for a South African narrative. Many scientific objections could be made about the narrative presented by the TRC. The very question as to the lingering impact of the primal traumatic experience can also easily be glossed over by focusing only on truth and reconciliation. 10 Probably the most dangerous supposition of the commission was the conviction that a narrative of trauma necessarily equals healing. 11 It should be noted that this does not mean that narrative has no therapeutic effects on individuals and communities, but rather that the very notion of a necessary link between the two should be revisited. The fact of the matter is that quite a few years have passed since the TRC narrative of truth and reconciliation was mediated to the world. Mediation by necessity entails different contextualisations of the message, which over time start to shape (or warp) the originally intended idea. When dealing with a co llective trauma narrative it becomes even more complex, since so many role players intentionally try to manipulate the narrative, apart from other contingent local, national and international developments whose effects become appropriated by the narrative. For this reason I stated earlier that one should not always suspect ideological intentions in the ways narratives like these function. They remain part of social developments which might be well beyond the control of a singular role player. This fact might subsequently lead to its very dissolution, but the other side of the coin is that such a narrative becomes extremely pliable in the grip it has on a collective reality. The collective trauma narrative then becomes very dangerous in its simplification not only of a traumatic past, but also in its simplification of the present in terms of this past.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2.5 Criticising the Trauma Narrative It begs the question, to what extent criticism from the ranks of the Afrikaans literary field was levelled at the TRC proceedings, and the collective trauma narrative it instigated. In 2003, John Miles published Die buiteveld (The Outfield), the story of main character Smerski, whose real identity is uncovered as the novel progresses. A South African soldier who fled the country and is now living under a false name, he experiences strong feelings of guilt, but also realises that he will never take part in a ‘public spectacle’ of atonement. He goes as far as to say that public confession to him is the worst kind of self-pity. Here the criticism seems to centre round the idea of coming to terms with an individually experienced trauma in a very public and collective way. The point of the criticism is not to question the importance and worth of confession, atonement, and narrative, but rather the collective appropriation of all of these. But here already the problematic position of Miles becomes clear. Is the trauma narrative to be criticised from within the parameters which form the perspective of the Afrikaans writer? Would it not in effect suggest a shrugging off of guilt, and does it not in all actuality emphasise the necessity of having the collective narrative to at least guide those who have not yet converted to its idealistic aims to add their voices to its message? What is in effect described here is the reductionist consequences a collective trauma narrative might have. Designated roles and functions within the narrative are set out and those not complying with it, do it to their own detriment. It follows that even the intention of the criticisms becomes irrelevant within the ambit of the collective narrative, since the narrative itself obviously mediates only what upholds its own dynamics. This leads to another issue which brings the whole relation between trauma and its representation full circle: what are the symptoms of traumatic experiences? Does it not include loss of (narrative or historical) identity and the suppressing of the right and ability to identify and express the own role within society? Do not collective trauma narratives sometimes stereotype to the extent that the trauma it sets out to deal with is symptomatically acted out in its stead? 3. Conclusion The impact of the South African collective trauma narrative on the Afrikaans literary field is complex: the collective narrative itself evolves continuously, as do the reactions that follow. Both literary texts and literary criticism have often positioned themselves in relation to coming to terms with the past. The narrative itself has forced Afrikaans writers to take stock of their history and identity, which has led to many texts describing a symptomatic sense of loss. If trauma is loosely defined as a loss of narrative, the logical conclusion would be that because of a deconstruction of their identity and history, Afrikaners too suffer from a collective trauma. Because of the difficult position of the Afrikaans writer within the context of the collective trauma narrative, the moral credibility to criticise this narrative is

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__________________________________________________________________ hampered: this further enhances the symptomatic sense of loss, thereby contributing to a collective South African trauma. A serious question which remains is to what extent ‘trauma’ can be used as a blanket term in post-Apartheid South Africa, and to what extent its narrative refers back to the traumatic past in real terms.

Notes 1

A. Verdoolaege, ‘Media Representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Their Commitment to Reconciliation’, Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 17(2), 2005, pp. 181-199. 2 D. LaCapra, History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2009, p. 4. 3 LaCapra, p. 83. 4 H.P. Van Coller, ‘Die waarheidskommissie in die Afrikaanse letterkunde: die Afrikaanse prosa in die jare negentig’, Stilet, Vol. 9(1), 1997, p. 11. 5 D. Edwards, ‘The Lasting Legacy of Trauma: Understanding Obstacles to Resolution following Traumatic Experiences’, Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past, P. GobodoMadikizela and C. van der Merwe (eds), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009, p. 46; C. van der Merwe, ‘Literature as Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Examples from Afrikaans Literature’, GobodoMadikizela and van der Merwe, p. 286. 6 H. Du Plooy, ‘An Overview of Afrikaans Narrative Texts Published Between 1990 and 2000’, Stilet, Vol. 13(2), 2001, p. 26. 7 L. Barnard, ‘Die psigologiese identiteit van die bose: Lacan, aggressie en Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz’, Literator, Vol. 24(2), 2003; M. Wenzel, ‘The Many ‘Faces’ of History: Manly Pursuits and Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz at the Interface of Confrontation and Reconciliation’, Literator, Vol. 23(3), 2002, pp. 17-32. 8 A. Visagie, ‘Fathers, Sons and the Political in Contemporary Afrikaans Fiction’, Stilet, Vol. 13(2), 2001, pp. 140-157. 9 A. Krog, Country Of My Skull, Vintage, London, 1998, p. 422. 10 S. Graham, ‘The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature in South Africa’, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 34(1), 2003, p. 14. 11 S.V. Gallagher, ‘I Want to Say Forgive Me: South African Discourse and Forgiveness’, PMLA, Vol. 117(2), 2002, p. 304.

Bibliography Barnard, L., ‘Die psigologiese identiteit van die bose: Lacan, aggressie en Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz’. Literator. Vol. 24(2), 2003, pp. 105-123.

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__________________________________________________________________ Beuke-Muir, C., ‘Die kwesbaarheid van die moderne man en die manifestasie daarvan in die prosa van Piet van Rooyen’. Stilet. Vol. 13(1), 2001, pp. 1-10. Coetzee, C., Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz. Queillerie, Cape Town, 1998. Du Plooy, H., ‘An Overview of Afrikaans Narrative Texts Published between 1990 and 2000’. Stilet. Vol. 13(2), 2001, pp. 14-31. Edwards, D., ‘The Lasting Legacy of Trauma: Understanding Obstacles to Resolution following Traumatic Experiences’. Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009. Gallagher, S. V., ‘I Want to Say Forgive Me: South African Discourse and Forgiveness’. PMLA. Vol. 117(2), 2002, pp. 303-306. Gobodo-Madikizela, P. and van der Merwe, C., Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009. Graham, S., ‘The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature in South Africa’. Research in African Literatures. Vol. 34(1), 2003, pp. 11-30. John, P., ‘Versoening, Aufarbeitung, Renaissance, Verligting: Wat eis die SuidAfrikaanse verlede van ons?’ Stilet. Vol. 12(2), 2000, pp. 43-62. Krog, A., Country of My Skull. Vintage, London, 1998. LaCapra, D., History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2009. Miles, J., Die buiteveld. Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 2003. Van Coller, H.P., ‘Die waarheidskommissie in die Afrikaanse letterkunde: die Afrikaanse prosa in die jare negentig’. Stilet. Vol. 9(1), 1997, pp. 9-21. Van der Merwe, C.N., ‘Literature as Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Examples from Afrikaans Literature’. Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Verdoolaege, A., ‘Media Representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Their Commitment to Reconciliation’. Journal of African Cultural Studies. Vol. 17(2), 2005, pp. 181-199. Visagie, A., ‘Manlikheid en magsverlies in die Afrikaanse jagliteratuur sedert 1994: Die olifantjagters van Piet van Rooyen en Groot vyf van Johann Botha’. Stilet. Vol. 12(2), 2000, pp. 29-41. Visagie, A., ‘Fathers, Sons and the Political in Contemporary Afrikaans Fiction. Stilet. Vol. 13(2), 2001, pp. 140-157. Wenzel, M., ‘The Many ‘Faces’ of History: Manly Pursuits and Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz at the Interface of Confrontation and Reconciliation’. Literator. Vol. 23(3), 2002, pp. 17-32. Cilliers van den Berg is German lecturer at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. His current research focuses on collective trauma narratives, primarily with regards to the socio-political impact literature might have in this regard.

PART 3 Theorising Trauma in Practice

A Jungian Approach to Understanding and Treating Adopted Children who were Traumatized Prior to Their Adoption Mark Bortz Abstract All adopted children face a myriad of psychological and existential issues. This is further impacted if the child experiences trauma prior to the adoption. The work of two Jungian theoreticians offers a profound insight for understanding these children. Erich Neumann explores how the emergence of ego and consciousness is facilitated by the relationship with the primary parent. When the environment obstructs or fails to facilitate the evolution of the ego an emergency ego arises that allows the child to survive at the expense of growth and development. Donald Kalsched has suggested that when faced with severe trauma, that the ego cannot cope with, the self develops archetypal defences that allow the child to survive but hinder further development. These survival strategies make these children particularly difficult to engage with therapeutically. Their priority is to survive, rather than heal or develop. They have a great deal of difficulty to verbalize or even imagine their trauma. Jung’s respect of the psyche as a self healing system allows us a d ifferent approach in treating these children. Non verbal therapeutic modalities allow the psyche of these children to engage in a therapeutic process. Sand play therapy is particularly useful in working with these children. This is demonstrated by a clinical vignette focusing on three sand worlds of a child who had been traumatized prior to adoption. Key Words: Adoption, emergency ego, Jung, Kalsched, Neumann, sand play, self care system, psyche as self healing system, trauma. ***** All adopted children face a myriad of psychological and existential issues. This is further impacted if the child experiences trauma prior to the adoption. Children who experience trauma, particularly during infancy, have issues that impact every aspect of their development and their very being. Jungian ideas, particularly Erich Neumann’s concept of the emergency ego 1 and Donald’s Kalsched’s concept of the archetypal self-care system 2 and possibly more importantly his understanding of unimaginable trauma can profoundly help us to understand these children, and develop an appreciation of how unimaginable their early trauma is for them. Along with these concepts, Jung’s profound respect of the psyche as a self healing system may help us treat these children. The free and protected space of sand play therapy, the sand as a representation of the archetypal Great Mother, and the fact that images are the psyche's first language suggests that sand play therapy is an

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__________________________________________________________________ extraordinary therapeutic technique that profoundly facilitates the psyche healing itself. 1. Erich Neumann’s Concept of the Emergency Ego Erich Neumann (1905-1960) is widely recognized as Jung’s most creative and scholarly student. In his opus magnus, The Origins and History of Consciousness (1954) he draws on a wide range of mythology to show how the development of the individual's consciousness goes through the same archetypal stages as the development of human consciousness as a whole. His last book The Child: Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality (1973) is a companion to his earlier work, focusing on how these archetypal themes are played out psychologically. Similar to Margaret Mahler, Neumann distinguishes between the physical and psychological birth of the human infant. He writes ‘The human child … must go through an extra-uterine as well as intra-uterine phase’. 3 Or more simply the nine months in the womb is not enough for psychological birth and the human infant spends another stage in a womb-like experience with his or her mother. During this phase the foundations of the child’s relationship to its body, unconsciousness, self, others and the world is established. Consciousness with the ego as its centre arises from an experience of the unconscious self and the primary relationship. But what happens when the mother is persecutory or abandons the infant as in the case of orphans who have no primary care and experience trauma prior to adoption? Trauma that is unimaginable by the adopting parents, mental health professionals and most importantly the child himself. Neumann differentiates two possible consequences. The first option is apathy, an egoless state of decline. The child gives up, or dissociates. The second option is the establishment of what has become known as an emergency ego. Without the shelter of the primal relationship a distressed negative ego emerges prematurely. Not being able to rely on the other it awakens too soon and is driven prematurely to independence by the situation, of hunger, anxiety, distress and a myriad of brutal factors the unprotected infant faces. This is particularly so when the trauma is early in the child’s life, and is chronically sustained. Rather than feel helpless and unsafe the emergency ego is consumed with aggression and rage. It is often provocative in a premature and inappropriate manner. The emergency ego helps the child survive horrific hardships, but if it remains after the trauma, it impacts almost every aspect of the child’s behaviour. A rigid emergency ego is associated with almost all psychopathology. The emergency ego is primarily concerned with survival. In this situation there is very little energy for relatedness to others, and often more devastating, to their own self. There is very little energy for feeling, which is often perceived as a threat. These perceptions were in the past not always incorrect. Unfortunately the emergency ego does not always perceive change in the environment. Not allowing oneself to feel or connect with others leaves the child in a state of acute suffering and loneliness.

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__________________________________________________________________ The same survival, adaption strategies leaves them lacking the relational and reflective abilities that are often essential in order to engage in a t herapeutic process that could free them from the constraints of this no longer necessary emergency ego. 2. Donald Kalsched’s Concept of Archetypal Defences Kalsched’s work with adult patients who had undergone early trauma led him to new conceptualizations. 4 Kalsched notes that every life form is centrally preoccupied with protection and defence. Normally the ego is responsible for defences. When trauma is too severe for the ego to contend with, or when the trauma happens early on in life, and the ego is not fully formed, the psyche has another line of defence. The self, as the centre of the psyche and the unconscious, can too create defences. When the self feels its personal spirit is to be violated or destroyed and that it cannot call on the ego, it creates an archetypal self care system to protect the personal spirit from total annihilation. The person pays a horrifically high price for these defences. Because the self, often correctly, perceives itself and the personal spirit being threatened with total non-being or utter annihilation it feels justified for using harsh or dark defences. These defences often come from the dark side of the numinous. Often when the trauma is one that the infant is born into, there are no positive human figures to model these self-care figures on. Hence the self can only rely on a magical or mythological level. Here the self finds demonic figures in the archetypal psyche. Often they are personified as demons and are persecutory. This system says never again will the traumatized personal spirit suffer so badly or face a cruel reality. Before this will happen the self care system will do whatever is in its power to do: if necessary disperse it into fragments or dissociate, drive it crazy, numb it with intoxicating substances, and keep killing it to avoid hope. In short these defensive, self preservation mechanisms can be associated with almost all of psychopathology. Kalsched goes as far as comparing the demonic self care system as an auto immune disease (AIDS) attacking the very psyche it is defending. The self care system mistakably perceives each new life event as a dangerous event. Because danger is perceived as a threat of utter destruction, the new is ruthlessly attacked. Often the initial trauma is no longer present but the self care system is unable or unwilling to learn and hence remains tyrannical and destructive well after the danger has passed. 3. A Partial Conclusion There are some theoretical differences and use of different concepts by Neumann and Kalsched. Nevertheless on a conceptual level and even more so in terms of the clinical phenomena of traumatized patients, Neumann and Kalsched are describing the same phenomena. Namely, when there is an early trauma, before

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__________________________________________________________________ the ego evolves or becomes adequate, the psyche uses primitive archaic structures to enable itself to survive. These configurations are extraordinarily effective in allowing the psyche to survive in an environment where survival is not a given. But because of the fear of utter annihilation these structures never let their guard down. They are so intent on survival and protection that they do not allow for growth and healing. How then can these children be helped? Here as therapists we need to be present but very respectful that only the psyche can heal itself. This I will show by a clinical case focusing on three sand trays of a young child. 4. Clinical Material: From Persecuting to Reclaiming the Soul Yossi was six and a half when he came to therapy. He had been adopted by loving devoted parents when he was a year old. He was adopted from an orphanage in Eastern Europe where illness, hunger, neglect, and inconsistent care were part of his daily reality. There was no known history, prior to him being placed in the orphanage. The boy's parents felt their love and devotion would be enough. Signs of pathology were underplayed or ignored until Yossi in his first year of school had, in a fit of rage, punched a hole though a plain of glass, miraculously not cutting himself. Yossi felt safe enough in the first session to do a sand world, or rather a world that he kept changing. (Figure 1) The left side of the initial scene reflects the chaos that he has experienced. Within the chaos are a vast number of witches, monsters and skeletons. Unimaginable chaos and horror. But chaos and horror that his psyche not only produces, but allows him to see and experience. Kalsched goes as far to say that when the trauma is constellated as a whole it brings the various experiences together not as re-experience but really the first experience of the trauma. 5 To the lower right side of the sand tray a lone knight stands on a castle seeing the horror. In a container of water, attended to by two cannibal skeletons there is a figure of a princess in white. I considered that this was possibly a representation of Yossi's soul. Not protected by the Great Mother, or the personal abandoning mother of his early environment. It is not clear whether the two cannibal skeletons are there as guards or potential consumers of his soul. Perhaps capturing the protecting as well as devouring energy of the archaic self care system.

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Figure 1 Yossi then removed the princess from the container and placed her on a platform within the castle walls. (Figure 2)

Figure 2 I felt myself breathing a sigh of relief. Moving the princess to within the castle walls was to put her in a s afe protected space. My relief did not last long. Yossi

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__________________________________________________________________ then took a guillotine that was originally placed in the walls of the castle and places the princess, head up, and ready to be beheaded. (Figure 3) With the third location of the princess, under the blade of the guillotine, it was clear that there was a p ersecutory structure, persecuting his very soul. His actions seemed to be saying ‘I would rather destroy my soul than let myself be annihilated.’

Figure 3 4)

A few weeks later he did a sand scene thematically similar to the first. (Figure

Figure 4

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__________________________________________________________________ This time the era of persecutory figures is both smaller and better organized. There is a barrier of fences dividing it from the right side where military planes and vehicles are placed. One aspect of the right side is that there are no human beings in this area reflecting his difficulties connecting to others and the loneliness he was then experiencing. Another aspect of this side is that there are massive and very formidable defences: the fences, the powerful tanks and fighter planes. The lack of human beings in this area is suggestive that these powerful defences are rigid and without a guiding hand, unable to respond to changing circumstances.

Figure 5 The princess is placed in a blue egg shaped container within the chaotic left side of the sand tray. (Figure 5) The location of the left side leaves her vulnerable, but by placing her within the blue egg, he is creating a protective shell around it to insulate her from the threatening world around her. I felt he was evolving from the previous representation of beheading her in the service of his survival, to a concept of insulating or freezing her within a hostile environment. It was as if he was saying: ‘My soul does not have to be murdered for me to survive, though it still needs to be frozen or encased for me to survive.’ In lieu of later development, the choice of an egg shaped container may prelude to a later rebirth of the soul. About two years into the therapy another remarkable series of sand trays was presented. The first scene, done in wet sand, shows a co nstruction site. Responding to how Yossi now represents in the outer world. (Figure 6)

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Figure 6 When an area of the sand was excavated by him there are ten skulls. (Figure7) It was as if he was saying ‘no matter how peacefully I behave I have undergone horrific annihilating events and they will always be part of who I am’. Yet like all symbols, the skull, as a symbol, is pregnant with meaning, containing positive and negative sides to it. The skull symbolizes death. Yet the skull is also everlasting. But this was not the end. Yossi then brought a number of precious stones and buried them in the sand. With infinite care and patience he began to evacuate them one by one and slowly transport them to the diametrically opposite corner to the skulls. (Figure 8) I feel these are parts of his personal spirit or soul that have been fragmented and dispersed in deep layers of the psyche. Here they are retrieved, reclaimed, and placed together for both of us to see. The juxtaposition of the skulls with the precious stones affirms his journey to heal his traumatic origins. The selfregulated journey to uncover his traumatic experiences integrated both the skeletons of his past with the psychic treasures that accompany this new development. The therapeutic vessel could contain, within the same world, both representations of his trauma and manifestations of new energies.

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Figure 7

Figure 8 5. Conclusion Patients who have been traumatized are a p articularly difficult challenge to psychotherapists. This is not only because of the traumatic material that needs to be dealt with. The experience of trauma leads to defensive structures and behaviour that impact every aspect of the patient's being. Not only are these defences strategies associated with a wide range of psychopathology, but they make the patient resistant to their emotions, self reflection and being in relation - the cornerstones of a therapeutic process.

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__________________________________________________________________ Both Neumann and Kalsched's theoretical models help clinicians make sense of, and have a respectful attitude to, these structures that helped the patient survive. Nevertheless patients come to therapy to heal and develop. Jung's profound understanding of the psyche as a self regulatory healing mechanism is useful in the face of these patients' resistance to change. Nevertheless for a p rocess of transformation and the emergence of new energies to take place, a s afe vessel needs to be available. The free and protected space of sand play therapy is a profound vessel. The figures call for creating images and often the trauma is seen and experienced in a s afe and protected environment. The process allows the psyche to begin healing. New sand worlds are slowly created, each transforming the initial trauma into manageable experiences. The healing vessel of the sand tray and the therapeutic milieu provide the safety which often allows the psyche to discover and manifest new energies. Energies that allow for development and make life worthwhile.

Notes 1

E. Neumann, The Child: Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality, Shambhala, Boston, 1973. 2 D. Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit, Routledge, London, 1996 and D. Kalsched, ‘Archetypal Affect, Anxiety and Defence in Patients Who Have Suffered Early Trauma’, Post-Jungians Today: Key Papers in Contemporary Analytical Psychology, A. Casement (ed), Routledge, London, 1998, pp. 83-102. 3 M.S. Mahler, F. Pine and A. Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, Basic Books, New York, 1975, p. 7. 4 D. Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma, 1996, and D. Kalsched, ‘Archetypal Affect, Anxiety and Defence in Patients Who Have Suffered Early Trauma’, pp. 83-102. 5 Ibid., p. 95.

Bibliography Kalsched, D., The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. Routledge, London, 1996. Kalsched, D., ‘Archetypal Affect, Anxiety and Defense in Patients Who Have Suffered Early Trauma’. Post-Jungians Today: Key Papers in Contemporary Analytical Psychology. Casement, A. (ed), Routledge, London, 1998. Mahler, M.S., Pine, F. and Bergman, A., The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. Basic Books, New York, 1975.

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__________________________________________________________________ Neumann, E., The Origins and History of Consciousness. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1954. Neumann, E., The Child: Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality. Shambhala, Boston, 1973. Mark Bortz, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychotherapist in private practice in Kfar Saba, Israel. Correspondence: Hameyasdim 41/8, Kfar Saba, 44371, Israel. Email: [email protected]

Trauma to the Body Politic: Impacts and Adjustments Following Political Assassination William W. Bostock Abstract The ancient metaphor of the body politic, that is, the isomorphism of individual body and whole of society, is taken as a starting point. It is extended to cover the mental state and mental functioning of the collectivity or ‘mind politic’, and the provenance of the concept through Durkheim (conscience collective), Freud (the unconscious), Jung (collective unconscious), Erikson (identity) and Antonovsky (sense of coherence) is presented. Particular attention is given to psychic wounding and Rank’s concept of trauma, and the process of healing. Here the relevance at the collective level of Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief is seen. Among the many sources of trauma one stands out as particularly shocking and impactful, and that is political assassination. There is no standard pathology of assassination, and each must be examined sui generis for impact, adjustment and possibility of healing. Some diverse but historically significant political assassinations are considered with a view to making some general statements about the healing process. Key Words: Assassination, body politic, collective mental state, collective trauma, identity, mind politic, sense of coherence. ***** 1. The Concept of the Body Politic The metaphor of human society as a body is found in Sanskrit writings, continuing through Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, to the present day. The body politic can suffer physical trauma from many sources such as war, conquest, famine and natural disaster. Physical trauma also impacts at the mental level, and some communities have severe difficulty in adjusting, such as a loss of sense of community. 1 2. The Collective Consciousness or ‘Mind Politic’ In the Nineteenth Century, various writers hypothesised a collective mind. If it is accepted that there is a body politic, it logically follows that there will be a ‘mind politic’. Such a co ncept does in fact have a l ong history as ‘collective consciousness’, which, like individual consciousness, is under the influence of a collective unconscious. Predating Freud by more than two decades, the theorist Le Bon (1841-1931) observed that unconscious phenomena dominated in the functioning of the mind of the psychological crowd. This is also shared collectively as many common characteristics passed from generation to generation as collective memory, which could be retrieved or unretrieved. While suggestibility can be a

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__________________________________________________________________ characteristic of an individual, it is more acute in a cr owd, which will be ‘perpetually hovering on the borderland of the unconscious’. 2 Freud (1856-1939) adopted Le Bon’s formulation of group mind functioning, which he accepted as operating through mental processes just as it does in the mind of an individual. Freud also accepted the importance of a repressed unconscious. When he speculated on the group mind, he saw it as led by the unconscious. The group mind demands leadership because of the attraction of the group for the individual arising from the fear of being alone so that the herd instinct is something primary and indivisible. As a herd instinct or group or community feeling develops, this group will make as its first demand the demand for identification of one with another but also recognising a single person as superior to all, that is, the leader. 3 Another psychoanalyst, Jung (1875-1961), believed that the personal unconscious, as proposed by Freud, was underlain by a d eeper level of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious provides a second psychic stream, as a system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. The unconscious has three levels: that which can be produced voluntarily, that which can be produced involuntarily, and that which can never be produced. The unconscious stores repressed material, which compensates or counterbalances the conscious, and can create symbols. The collective unconscious also shapes Weltanschauung or world-view. 4 Freud and Jung noted that just as an individual mind can suffer trauma, so could a collective mind suffer collective trauma. The effects of trauma were central in the writings of the early psychoanalysts and developed by Rank, who explored the concept more fully. 5 Rank saw the analyst’s role as helping the subject to belatedly accomplish the uncompleted mastery of the trauma of birth, in other words, to overcome trauma by processing it to produce a new sense of identity. The very same process can occur at the collective level. Erikson saw a strong sense of identity as a necessary condition for both a successfully functioning individual and for a society and discussed at length the dysfunctional states of confusion, crisis and panic of identity. A strong sense of identity is a generator of energy and a weak or confused sense of identity as a source of decline. As a crisis of identity develops, powerful negative identity factors are produced. 6 It is important to note that identity is not a single entity, but rather a work in progress. Castells observed that as identity is constructed, three categories can be recognized: (1) legitimizing identity, in which the dominant aspects of society are recreated (2) resistance identity, in which marginalized groups develop an identity and (3) project identity, in which new identities are created and which can in turn influence a dominant identity. 7

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__________________________________________________________________ Identity can thus be seen as part of a collective mental state that is a necessary condition for survival, but one that can become severely disordered by the severe trauma that can be caused by the assassination of a leader. The performance of the individual or community in the task of surviving will involve an interaction between many activities and the mental state. This requires the maintaining of a sense of coherence 8 which is vital to the task of survival, that is, coherent social functioning. The difficulty of obtaining and maintaining the sense of coherence can be made much harder when a state is badly corrupted. The concepts of identity and sense of coherence can merge together as a coherent sense of identity at a collective level, which can be severely disrupted by the trauma of the assassination of a leader. 3. The Impacts of Assassination In regard to the collective consciousness and unconscious or ‘mind politic’, it is significant that the theorists of the unconscious gave enormous importance to the role of the leader whose role is one of articulating society’s deeper feelings and through working with these raw materials, shape and give direction to a society. Therefore, when a leader is suddenly and unexpectedly removed, there is likely to be major trauma. Where this removal has occurred by accident or illness, the trauma could be significant, but where it has been by the actions of an assassin, the trauma is likely to be of even greater magnitude. As a result of being left leaderless, a society will likely be bereft of motivation, directionless, given to irrationality, and paralysed with fear. The impacts of assassination will be manifold and far-reaching: political, social, economic, organisational, military, and above all psychological, in the form of a catastrophic and generalised loss of confidence. Identity can thus be seen as part of a collective mental state that is a necessary condition for survival, but one that can become severely disordered by deep and systemic corruption, through a d istorted sense of coherence, and resultant identification by self and others as part of a corrupt or broken state. 4. Stages of Processing the Trauma of Assassination The impact of a political assassination upon an individual or group or whole state can severely distort the sense of coherence of identity that is vital to survival, as it is with any other loss. Here it is possible to use the well-known stages of grief of Kübler-Ross as a template. Kübler-Ross recognized grief as a process involving five stages in the journey from initial shock to successful adjustment and survival. The stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. 9 This schema can be expanded and adapted to cover the psychological stages of adjustment by a society after the assassination of its leader:

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__________________________________________________________________ 1. Denial or disbelief 2. Anger and violent reprisal against perpetrators, or alleged perpetrators 3. Bargaining, which may involve an act of atonement by the group or associates of the perpetrator(s) 4. Depression, or a generalized state of despondency and gloom, resulting in widespread demotivation and apathy 5. Acceptance and apathy. After the depression has exhausted itself, it gives way to the widespread feeling that nothing can be done to restore the pre-assassination status quo 6. Humiliation, or an awareness that among the community of nations the reputation of one’s collectivity has been severely damaged 7. Rebirth, the sense that a new order will be born, where the problems and difficulties of pre-assassination times of a regime can be left behind. The rebirth may include posttraumatic growth, 10 which is a positive psychological change that could have come about as a result of the challenge of surviving within a damaged system. 5. Three Case Studies of Political Assassination 5.1 Olof Palme (1927-1986) Olof Palme was a Socialist-Democratic politician who served as Prime Minster of Sweden from 1969 t o 1976 and 1982 to 1986. While Prime Minister, Palme carried out the constitutional reforms of making the Rijsdag a unicameral parliament and reducing the power of the monarchy. Internationally he supported the Third World countries and opposed the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and worked to end Apartheid in South Africa. On February 28, 1986, while walking home from the cinema with his wife, and without security guards, Palme was fatally shot and his wife wounded by an assassin. After a lengthy and somewhat botched investigation, including such suspects as the Kurdish Workers Party and the South African secret police, a suspect, Christer Pettersson, an unaffiliated and unemployed worker, was put on trial and convicted but the conviction was later overturned. In 2011 the allegation was made that the assassination was carried out by killer in the pay of the then Yugoslav Secret Service. 11 The impact of Palme’s assassination was immediate and enormous, but in the political dimension over a longer period, not as great as might have been expected. 12 The impact at the psychological level was much greater, as stated by Hausen

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__________________________________________________________________ The event was and has been seen as a symbolic turning point in modern Swedish history, and a tragic transition in the view of Sweden as a b enign quasi-utopian place to a more cynical view of Sweden as a p lace no longer insulated from the dangers previously associated with other parts of the world in the Swedish mindset. 13 It seems therefore that Swedish society has experienced difficulty in processing the trauma of the Palme assassination to the level of acceptance. The fact that no clear responsibility has been allocated a p art of this process is significant. At the psychological level, Sweden has had to endure the humiliation not only of violence but the revelation of imperfections of security, police detection and judicial process leading to a redefinition of identity. 5.2 Juvenal Habyarimana (1937-1994) Juvenal Habyarimana was President of the Republic of Rwanda from 1973 until his death in 1994 when his presidential jet was shot down by a surface-to-air missile on final approach to Kigali International Airport. All on board were killed in the crash, including Cyprien Ntaryamina, President of Burundi, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan military, and others including the two pilots who were French nationals. The immediate aftermath of the assassination was genocide along ethnic lines of 800,000 to one million people in a period of 100 days. While a colony of Germany and then Belgium, the colonial powers had traditionally favoured an ethnic minority group, the Tutsis, over the Hutu majority, though towards the end of their rule, the Belgians began to favour the Hutus, and a situation of intense ethnic rivalry had been allowed to develop. A short time before the assassination of the President, who was a member of the Hutu group, it was stated that … the government had adopted a new policy, according to which everyone in the country’s Hutu majority group was called upon to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority. The government, and an astounding number of its subjects, imaging that by exterminating the Tutsi people they would make the world a better place, and the mass killing had followed. 14 A full explanation of the tragedy is yet to be given, but certainly the actions and inactions of the world’s powers, international agencies and the media, share responsibility. Rwanda has had difficulty in processing the trauma triggered by the assassination, a process subverted by the lack of certainty of the identity of those responsible for the shooting down of the presidential jet. Rwanda had been in civil

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__________________________________________________________________ war since 1990 between the mostly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the mostly Hutu government, whose troops were backed by France, but a cea se-fire had been negotiated in 1993. Fearing reprisal after the genocide, some two million Hutus fled the country, and the RPF was able to take power, later confirmed in elections. While an official French enquiry laid responsibility for the assassination with the RPF, there are also claims that Habyarimana’s own troops were responsible, resenting his moves towards peace. 15 This uncertainty over responsibility could be seen as a factor causing difficulty in reaching the stage of rebirth. 5.3 Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1945) Prior to entering the national politics of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin had had a distinguished military and diplomatic career. When in politics he rose through the Left to be Minister of Labour and then Prime Minister from 1974 to 1977 and 1992 to 1995. During this time, his work for peace led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority and culminated in the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords and his receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. On November 4, 1995, Rabin was fatally shot by Yigal Amir, a twenty-five year old right-wing Jewish law student, while speaking at an evening peace rally. There were considerable weaknesses of security at the rally, despite many prior threats of violence. A week before the assassination, Rabin was reported in a French magazine interview to have said; ‘I don’t believe a Jew would kill a Jew’. 16 Despite the immediate capture and confession of the assassin, and subsequent conviction to life imprisonment, many conspiracy theories quickly developed and remain, including one that Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency, was responsible. A subsequent official enquiry, the Shamgar Commission, found that Shin Bet had ignored warnings that Jewish extremists were planning an attempt on Rabin’s life and were aware of Yigal Amir’s threats but had failed to act. 17 The immediate impact of the assassination on Israel was highly traumatic; as one commentator noted ‘(t)he event shocked Israeli society to its core and had a sobering effect on left and right, doves and hawks, secular and religious alike.’ 18 It also had worldwide effect, with Rabin’s funeral attended by many world leaders, but despite an overwhelming wave of sympathy, Rabin’s successor as Labour’s Acting Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, lost the May 1996 election to the Likud Party candidate, Binyamin Netanyahu, causing one analyst to comment that the assassination had had … less of a lasting impact on the public’s political values, beliefs and attitudes than might have been anticipated from the magnitude of the event and intensity of the immediate response. 19

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__________________________________________________________________ In the longer term, the assassination appears to have had the effect of delaying the peace process in the Middle East, but in Israeli society, which was born out of a history of grieving over trauma from before Masada, through pogroms, to the Holocaust, one more loss could be seen as temporary in psychological impact, fading with the passage of time. 20 6. Conclusion Of all the traumas that can beset a body politic, political assassination is one that is likely to be particularly deep and severe. This is because the response of political leaders to the need of the mind politic for a coherent identity at conscious and unconscious levels can be severely disrupted. Although each body politic will respond to the crisis of assassination in its own way, there is a common healing process. However, though a body politic may have to some extent successfully adjusted, the mind politic may become fixated at one or more stages of the process so that adjustment may be limited. As mind and body are in a contingent relation, there is likely to be a longer-term affect at the unconscious level.

Notes 1

K.T. Erikson, ‘Loss of Communality at Buffalo Creek’, American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 133, March 1976, pp. 302-305. 2 G. Le Bon, The Mind of the Crowd, Viking, New York, 1960 (First published 1895), p. 22. 3 S. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works, Standard Edition, XVIII, (1920-1922), Hogarth, London, 1955, pp. 75-118. 4 C.G. Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, (17 Volumes), Vol. 9. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1959, pp. 43-287. 5 O. Rank, The Trauma of Birth, Harper Row, New York, Evanston, San Fransisco, London, 1973 (First published 1929). 6 E.H. Erikson, ‘Identity, Psychosocial’, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan and Free Press, New York, pp. 61-65. 7 M. Castells, The Power of Identity, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997, p. 8. 8 A. Antonovsky, Health Stress and Coping, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, London, 1980. 9 E. Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, Macmillan, New York, 1969. 10 R.G. Tedeschi and L. Calhoun, ‘Post-Traumatic Growth: A New Perspective on Psychotraumatology’, Psychiatric Times, April 1, 2004. 11 The Australian (newspaper), ‘Yugoslav Spy Killed Palme, says Germany’, January 19, 2011, p. 9. 12 P. Esaiasson and D. Granberg, ‘Attitudes Towards a Fallen Leader: Evaluations of Olof Palme before and after Assassination, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 26, July 1996, pp. 429-439.

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D. Hansen, The Crisis Management of the Murder of Olof Palme: A CognitiveInstitutional Analysis, Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, 2003, p. 79. 14 P. Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, Picador, London, 1998, p. 6. 15 The East African, (newspaper), ‘Habyarimana Killed by His own Army – UK Experts’, January 10, 2011. 16 L. Laucella, Assassination, the Politics of Murder. Lowell House, Los Angeles, Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1998, p. 421. 17 Ibid., p. 433. 18 Y.Y.I. Vertzberger, ‘The Antimonies of Collective Political Trauma: A PreTheory’, Political Psychology, Vol. 18, December 1997, p. 863. 19 Ibid., p. 864. 20 A. Raviv, A. Sadeh, A. Raviv, O. Silberstein and O. Diver, ‘Young Israelis’ Reactions to National Trauma: The Rabin Assassination and Terror Attacks’, Political Psychology, Vol. 21, June 2000, p. 318.

Bibliography Antonovsky, A., Health Stress and Coping. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, London, 1980. The Australian (newspaper), ‘Yugoslav Spy Killed Palme, Says Germany’. January 19, 2011. Castells, M., The Power of Identity. Oxford, Blackwell, 1997. Erikson, E.H., ‘Identity, Psychosocial’. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Sills, D.R. (ed), Macmillan and Free Press, New York, 1968. Erikson, K.T., ‘Loss of Communality at Buffalo Creek’. American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 133, March 1976, pp. 302-305. Esaiasson, P. and Granberg, D., ‘Attitudes towards a Fallen Leader: Evaluations of Olof Palme before and after Assassination’. British Journal of Political Science. Vol. 26, July 1996, pp. 429-439. Freud, S., Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works. Standard Edition, XVIII, (1920-1922). Hogarth, London, 1955, pp. 75-118. Gourevitch, P., We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. Picador, London, 1998.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hansen, D., The Crisis Management of the Murder of Olof Palme: A CognitiveInstitutional Analysis. Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, 2003. Jung, C.G., The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 9. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1959. Kübler-Ross, E., On Death and Dying. Macmillan, New York, 1969. Laucella, L., Assassination, the Politics of Murder. Lowell House, Los Angeles and Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1998. Le Bon, G., The Mind of the Crowd. Viking, New York, 1960 (First published 1895). Rank, O., The Trauma of Birth. Harper Row, New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London, 1973, (First published 1929). Raviv, A., Sadeh, A, Raviv, A., Silberstein O. and Diver, O., ‘Young Israelis’ Reactions to National Trauma: The Rabin Assassination and Terror Attacks’. Political Psychology. Vol. 21, June 2000, pp. 299-322. Vertzberger, Y.Y.I., ‘The Antimonies of Collective Political Trauma: A PreTheory’. Political Psychology. Vol. 18, December 1997, pp. 863-876. William W. Bostock is Senior Lecturer in Government, University of Tasmania. His special interests include Political Psychology.

Criticizing Collective Trauma: A Plea for a Fundamental Social Psychological Reflection of Traumatization Processes Markus Brunner Abstract Since 9/11 at the latest, the idea that entire collectives or societies can be traumatized by shattering historical events has witnessed a significant upsurge. Theoretical concepts of collective or societal trauma are surprisingly scarce though. Notable exceptions are Volkan’s mass psychological concept of ‘chosen trauma’ and Alexander’s rather sociological notion of ‘cultural trauma’. But while Alexander’s focus on the social construction of trauma narratives is blind to the real suffering of people and its possible societal consequences, Volkan takes human suffering as a starting point but falls prey to the analyzed communities’ own ‘invention of tradition’ (Hobsbawm/Ranger). His blindness towards the constructive character of ‘collective traumas’ is problematic because the traumarelated concept of victimhood is used by many collectives in order to legitimate political claims or mask their own perpetratorship. In my chapter I want to follow up the question of how it is possible to speak about human suffering after wars, genocides and persecutions while at the same time countering the pervasive ideological trauma and victimhood discourses. With Hans Keilson, Ernst Simmel and psychoanalytic trauma theory I argue that all traumatization processes must be understood in societal context. The psychosocial reality before, during, and after the traumatizing event always shapes the trauma. Key Words: Collective trauma, cultural trauma, war neurosis, trauma theory, psychoanalysis, social psychology, political psychology. ***** In recent years, not only the term ‘trauma’ has witnessed a significant upsurge, but also the idea that entire collectives or societies can be traumatized by shattering historical events. Since 9/11 at the latest, everyone is talking about ‘collective traumas’ when it comes to describe the aftermath of incidents or states of violence. One hereby looks at the impacts of very different events and historical constellations like the civil wars in Rwanda or in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust with regard to the Israeli or the post-national socialist countries, the apartheid in South Africa and the bombing of the German cities in the Second World War. But even political or media events like the assassination of John F. Kennedy are said to unsettle a nation or a minority in it in a traumatic way. It is said that the nations, societies, or groups concerned have been wounded by these events and that they can only cope by using defence mechanisms specific to trauma coping. They try to suppress the event and collective experience and to

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__________________________________________________________________ rigidly exclude it from social discourses. The numbness of general responsiveness is contrasted by a s tate of increased attention and arousal when something associated with the traumatic events is brought up. And when the dissociated memories are evoked nevertheless, the pent-up aggressions caused by the traumatic incident are released against the groups or persons now identified as perpetrators. In this discourse, public media and historical, sociological, and social psychological explanations are often entangled and amplify one another. But before I come to the theoretical questions this discourse raises, I want to point out a political problem. The discourse of trauma is quite immediately linked to the inflation of another discourse: the victim discourse. David Becker speaks of an emerging ‘ideology of victimhood’, 1 an international competition of nations and groups to achieve the status of a victim. This status is very much coveted, because it brings some advantages: First, it distracts from one’s own wrongdoings. Second it allows the nations and groups to claim compensation from the supposed perpetrators. And third, the status of a victim can, if not legitimize, at least ostensibly explain and somehow validate ‘acts of revenge’ as taking place in response to one’s own suffering, for at any rate it blames the attacked ‘perpetrator’ too. Thus, the discourse about ‘collective traumas’ gains a problematic ideological dimension. Naturally it cannot be denied, but on the contrary it is important to underline, that events of violence like wars, genocides, persecution, and banishment leave tremendous scars for the - sometimes massive amounts of - people who sustained them. I think that all the mentioned events like civil wars, the Second World War, certainly the Holocaust, but also events like 9/11 leave incisions in a lot of the individuals concerned that we should call traumatic in a c linical sense. The term ‘trauma’ has a cr itical potential for establishing and denominating a co nnection between societal violence and individual suffering. So actually, the mentioned events force us to use the term in this critical sense. And of course theses traumas of sometimes masses of people shape the societies and groups that are affected by the violence. So this is my problem: How can we talk about the suffering of individuals, about its causes and about the societal effects of this suffering without falling into the trap of the described ‘ideology of victimhood’? Against this background I want to examine the term and the few existing concepts of ‘collective,’ ‘cultural,’ or ‘societal’ trauma. As you see, the question of what the notion of ‘collective trauma’ precisely means is not only a scientific but also a moral or political question. Therefore the answer has to be found in the tension between these layers. 1. Existing Concepts of the Notion Collective Trauma Considering the described boom of the idea of collective trauma it is surprising that only a few efforts have been made to theoretically conceptualize it. Possibly

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__________________________________________________________________ best known is the concept of ‘chosen trauma’ by Vamik Volkan. 2 Another one often brought up is the more sociological concept of ‘cultural trauma’ by Jeffrey C. Alexander. 3 For reasons of limited space, I can only state here that both concepts simplify the analyzed phenomena and their complex interrelations of psychological and social processes by singling out one dimension only. For Alexander, ‘cultural trauma’ is a ‘socially mediated attribution’, 4 which was proposed by social agents and has achieved acceptance in a public discourse. It doesn’t really matter if and in which form a traumatic event actually happened, what matters is the people’s belief that an event has damaged the bonds attaching people together. Thus, Alexander focuses on t he social construction of trauma narratives. Against this background it is very surprising that Alexander nonetheless mentions that a t rauma sometimes is not collectively recognized, ‘despite [its] objective status … and the pain and suffering it had caused’. 5 The real suffering of the people seems to trouble the scientific ‘neutral’ and merely sociological focus, but Alexander does not try to reflect on the connection between traumatic event, traumatized humans, and trauma discourse. Volkan on the other hand takes human suffering as a starting point. People suffer a traumatic event and are not able to mourn the loss, so they pass the task of mourning and reparation on to the next generations. The representation of this trauma can gain a massive importance for the large-group identity and when it is reactivated by anxiety-inducing circumstances, a so called ‘time-collapse’ occurs: the fears, fantasies, and defences associated with the chosen trauma reappear and the traumatic event that occurred sometime centuries ago ‘will be felt as if it happened yesterday’. 6 The new enemy in a conflict will be perceived as it was the ancient enemy and people feel entitled to regain what was lost and to seek revenge for it. But in focusing only on the real suffering and intergenerational traumatransmission-processes, Volkan falls into the trap of the analysed communities’ own ‘invention of tradition’. 7 Therefore, he legitimizes the ideology of large groups as a reaction to massive suffering. Both concepts do not ask about the relationship between the individual traumatic experience and the collective processing at all. Therefore I suggest social-psychologically reflecting the term of trauma itself. We need a concept of trauma that can handle the complex relationships between the traumatizing event, the psychosocial framing, the subjective experience, and the later processing within a social context. Deterministic concepts of trauma or mere lists of symptoms like the PTSD definitively can’t offer this. 2. Social-Psychological Reflections on Traumatization Processes I will not present such a co ncept but rather have a look into the history of psychoanalytic trauma theory. The psychoanalytic debates on trauma are a b ig field, firstly because of the permanent debates between conflict - and drive - on the

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__________________________________________________________________ one hand and other trauma-theoretical perspectives on the other hand. Since Freud’s rejection of his early seduction theory and his discovery of unconscious fantasies the constant question about the relationship between inner and external reality has emerged and is constantly hard-fought. Then secondly, the notion of trauma includes very different subjects like the impacts of the imprisonment in concentration camps, train accidents, infantile sexual abuses, and structurally stressed parent-child relationships. Instead of going into these debates, I just want to highlight some insights and approaches I regard as vital for a social-psychological approach to traumatization processes. The first author I want to address is Ernst Simmel. As a young army doctor in the First World War he treated hundreds of German soldiers who suffered from war neurosis, i.e. shock traumas in short therapies. After the war and again in 1944 he reflected on his experiences and called attention to the specific context of the particular group relationships in the army. 8 Simmel argued that the group psychological structure where what Freud 9 called the ego-ideal is externalized to the protecting leader of the company and the comradeship has a n arcissistic stabilizing function – in this structure the soldiers gain ‘a feeling of security and even an immunity against fear of death’. 10 Thus, in this group psychological situation the soldiers are basically protected against a trauma. In contrast, the war neuroses are an effect of a disintegration of the mass psychological bonds when the soldiers feel humiliated or disappointed by their superiors. When the soldier feels abandoned by the protecting ‘parent imago’ the realistic anxiety comes up and is amplified by feelings of guilt because of the aggressive feelings towards the superior. When there is no chance to removal by flight or attack these aggressions are turned against the soldier himself. Simmel argues that because of the systematic destabilization of the individual ego in the army the soldiers are even more vulnerable to trauma than civilians if the group coherence falls apart. Thus even the shock trauma in a war is not the direct effect of experiences of violence but is embedded in a psychosocial context and therefore linked to the bindings of the individual to other persons. In their report on London children during the Second World War, Dorothy Burlingham and Anna Freud document similar experiences of immunization effects against traumas by attachments to protecting persons. The Blitzkrieg bombs hardly scared the children as long as they felt sheltered by their parents. Only when they were separated from their parents or when the parents got anxious themselves the war experiences had traumatic impacts on the children. 11 Simmel not only highlights the stabilizing effects of personal group bonds, but also explains that one of the stabilizing key factors was a shared ideology, which secured the psychological structure even when personal attachments loosened. An ideology can prevent a p sychic breakdown and therefore, he argues, soldiers of a

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__________________________________________________________________ totalitarian state, where civilians already have a shared ideology, are more immune to trauma than others. Thus, Simmel shows that we have to look at potentially stabilizing or weakening mass psychological processes before and during a possibly traumatic event. And as if that were not enough, Simmel’s therapy is also noteworthy: he encouraged the traumatized soldiers to fight against a l ife-sized puppet which he identified as an incarnated enemy. As the soldier transformed his fear into anger and aggression and imaginarily regained the group’s recognition again by killing an enemy the traumatic symptoms disappeared. The removal of aggression against an imagined enemy and the reintegration into the group’s collective narcissism had stabilizing and curative impacts. Thus, there are mass psychological mechanisms or rather ideological proposals that can cushion or compensate for traumatizations again. Freud called this curing effect of mass psychology Schiefheilung, in English this translates as crooked cure. So, in his remarks on trauma Simmel shows the importance of analyzing the specific context, above all the scope of action and the mass psychological and ideological integration potentials, which are both always entangled with power structures. The next theorist I want to mention briefly is Alfred Lorenzer. 12 In comparing different traumatic situations he discovered that the patterns of these situations structure the later symptoms. Especially longer-lasting traumatic situations produce specific levels of regression and corresponding structures of symptoms. Lorenzer discovered a ‘concise congruence of the exterior situation of the event, the enforced position of the ego and the according symptomatology due to the [reactivated psychosexual] phase’. 13 So, Lorenzer shows as well that the reference to a trauma alone doesn’t say a lot about the impacts of the traumatic situation. There are differences between different scopes and restrictions of actions that cause different symptoms. It was Hans Keilson who revealed that the analysis of the traumatizing overall situation has to be even more expanded. In the 1970s he studied Jewish people who as children had survived the persecution by the Nazis but had lost their parents. 14 Keilson differentiated three stages that should be examined separately: The first one is the phase of the beginning of the terror against the Jewish families. The second one is the phase of the direct persecution when the children were separated from their parents and had to endure years in hiding places or in concentration camps while their parents had been killed. The third stage is the post-war period, the growing up in different milieus, in foster families, or orphanages. Keilson made the remarkable discovery that the third phase determined the perspective of healing more than the severity of the previous phases. The possibility of an integrating processing was more important for the development of symptoms than the extreme traumatizing situation during the ‘Third Reich.’

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__________________________________________________________________ Referring to Keilson, David Becker developed an advanced concept of sequential traumatization with some more stages that also includes the prehistory. This concept should be used as a f rame of reference for a cl ose analysis of traumatizing processes caused by political conflicts. Becker points out that an ‘after-the-trauma’ doesn’t exist but only ‘a continuing traumatic process that proceeds in a healing or destructive sense after the end of a war, direct violence or persecution’. 15 The traumatic process always develops in the mode of ‘afterwardness,’ a Freudian notion that can prevent us from a t oo simple deterministic concept of trauma. Afterwardness is not a simple deferred action as it is often translated into English but it designates a complex dialectic temporality of determination which is continuously revised and retroactively constructed. And as we have seen, these processes of afterwardness always have to be seen in relation to societal circumstances and discourses. Thus, in an analysis of traumatization processes we always have to take a closer look at all the stages, the psychic and psychosocial prehistory, the stress situation, and the later chances, limits, and ways of processing. The reference to a traumatic situation hardly says anything about the long-term handling of it. Trauma is a process that doesn’t have a static form but is constantly altering and developing. We always have to consider the social, psychosocial, and ideological or discursive context before, during, and after the trauma, which is essential for the chances to empower and enable the traumatized, and to help them integrate the traumatic event. 3. Conclusions 1) Due to the inflation of trauma discourses and associated victim discourses I plea for a car eful use of the term trauma. If everything is traumatic the notion of trauma becomes meaningless. We should reserve it for cases of massive violence and fear of death. And I think my look into the history of trauma theory has shown that even in cases of what is called extreme traumatization we have to consider the whole historical context. Not only out of political or moral but also out of clinical reasons: in many ways, the external reality is always inscribed in the trauma process. 2) I recommend letting go of terms like collective, national or cultural trauma. They obscure more than they are able to enlighten. Either they are used just metaphorically in the sense of a disruption of communication structures or a narcissistic humiliation of a large group. Here the recourse to trauma theory is unnecessary but rather confusing. Or the terms are really used to describe the societal impacts of mass traumatizations. Then they are insufficiently complex because, in a clinical sense, only individuals can be traumatized. Instead of these terms I suggest using three different terms: Firstly ‘collective processing of mass individual traumatizations’ for the cases I mainly discussed in

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__________________________________________________________________ this chapter. The second is ‘trauma narration’ or ‘trauma discourse,’ which can either be just invented or correspond to a real trauma of several group members. In the last case we could talk about a ‘discursive collectivization of individual traumas,’ which sometimes is the downside of the first category. Thirdly, Angela Kühner suggests speaking of ‘trauma induced collectives,’ i.e. large groups that aren’t formed until their persecution. 3) In this conceptual framework we always have to ask what constituted the traumatic effect, why, when, and in which context, and what have been the impacts and the short-and long-term chances and limits for the traumatized to process and adapt his experiences.

Notes 1

D. Becker, ‘Die Schwierigkeit, massives Leid angemessen zu beschreiben und zu verstehen: Traumakonzeptionen, gesellschaftlicher Prozess und die neue Ideologie des Opfertums’, Trauma und Wissenschaft, A. Karger (ed), Vandenhoeck und Rupprecht, Göttingen, 2009, pp. 61-91. 2 V. Volkan, Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1997; V. Volkan, ‘Gruppenidentität und auserwähltes Trauma’, Psyche, Vol. 54, 2000, pp. 931-953; V. Vamik, ‘Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group Identity’, Group Analysis, Vol. 34, 2001, pp. 79-97. 3 J. Alexander, ‘Toward A Theory of Cultural Trauma’, Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, J. Alexander et al. (eds), University Of California Press, Berkeley/London, 2004, pp. 1-30. 4 Ibid., p. 8. 5 J. Alexander, 2004, p. 19. 6 Vamik: ‘Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas’, 2001, p. 89. 7 E. Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, The Invention of Tradition, E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), University Press, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 1-14. 8 E. Simmel [1918], ‘Zur Psychoanalyse der Kriegsneurosen’, Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen: Ausgewählte Schriften, Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1993, pp. 2135; E. Simmel, ‘Kriegsneurosen’ [1944], Ibid., pp. 204-226. 9 S. Freud [1921], ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’, Standard Edition 18. 10 E. Simmel, ‘Kriegsneurosen’, 1993, p. 212 (original emphasis, translated by myself). 11 D. Burlingham and A. Freud, Young Children in War-Time, Allen & Unwin, London, 1942. 12 A. Lorenzer, ‘Zum Begriff der: Traumatischen Neurose’, Psyche, Vol. 20, 1966, pp. 481-492; A. Lorenzer [1968], ‘Methodologische Probleme der Untersuchung

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__________________________________________________________________ Traumatischer Neurosen’, Perspektiven einer kritischen Theorie des Subjekts, Seminar Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 1972, pp. 32-43. 13 Lorenzer, ‘Zum Begriff der Traumatischen Neurose’, 1966, p. 488 (translated by myself). 14 H. Keilson, Sequentielle Traumatisierung bei Kindern: Deskriptiv-klinische und quantifizierend-statistische follow-up Untersuchung zum Schicksal der jüdischen Kriegswaisen in den Niederlanden, Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart, 1979; H. Keilson, ‘Sequentielle Traumatisierung bei Kindern. Ergebnisse einer Follow-upUntersuchung’, Schicksale der Verfolgten. Psychische und somatische. Auswirkungen von Terrorherrschaft, H. Stoffels (ed), Springer, Berlin, 1991, pp. 98-109. 15 D. Becker, Die Erfindung des Traumas - Verflochtene Geschichten, Edition Freitag, Berlin, 2006, p. 196 (translated by myself).

Bibliography Alexander, J., ‘Toward A Theory of Cultural Trauma’. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Alexander, J. et al. (eds), University Of California Press, Berkeley/London, 2004. Becker, D., Die Erfindung des Traumas - Verflochtene Geschichten. Edition Freitag, Berlin, 2006. –––, ‘Die Schwierigkeit, massives Leid angemessen zu beschreiben und zu verstehen. Traumakonzeptionen, gesellschaftlicher Prozess und die neue Ideologie des Opfertums’. Trauma und Wissenschaft. Karger, A. (ed), Vandenhoeck und Rupprecht, Göttingen, 2009. Burlingham, D. & Freud, A., Young Children in War-Time. Allen & Unwin, London, 1942. Freud, S. [1921], ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’. Standard Edition. Vol. 18. Hogarth, London, 1955, pp. 67-143. Hobsbawm, E., ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’. The Invention of Tradition. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds), University Press, Cambridge, 1983. Keilson, H., Sequentielle Traumatisierung bei Kindern: Deskriptiv-klinische und quantifizierend-statistische follow-up Untersuchung zum Schicksal der jüdischen Kriegswaisen in den Niederlanden. Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart, 1979.

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__________________________________________________________________ Laplanche J. [1992], ‘Notes on Afterwardness’. Essays on Otherness. Routledge, London, 1999. Lorenzer, A., ‘Zum Begriff der Traumatischen Neurose’. Psyche. Vol. 20, 1966, pp. 481-492. –––, ‘Methodologische Probleme der Untersuchung Traumatischer Neurosen’. Perspektiven einer kritischen Theorie des Subjekts. Seminar Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 1972. Simmel, E. [1918], ‘Zur Psychoanalyse der Kriegsneurosen’. Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen: Ausgewählte Schriften. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1993. –––, ‘Kriegsneurosen’. Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen: Ausgewählte Schriften. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1993. Volkan, V., Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1997. Volkan, V., ‘Gruppenidentität und auserwähltes Trauma’. Psyche. Vol. 54, 2000, pp. 931-953. Vamik, V., ‘Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group Identity’. Group Analysis. Vol. 34, 2001, pp. 79-97. Markus Brunner is one of the coordinators of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Politische Psychologie (Working group for Political Psychology at the Leibniz University Hanover/Germany; http://www.agpolpsy.de), lecturer at the Sigmund-FreudUniversity in Vienna/Austria and is writing his theses about the societal impacts of mass traumatizations. Main research fields: Psychoanalysis, psychoanalytical social psychology, trauma theory and the relation between social theory, arts and political practice.

Destabilizing Narratives of Values and Belief Systems: Identity Trauma in Warfare Pamela Creed Abstract This chapter is a representation of a larger study; therefore, only one veteran of the Iraq War is represented here. The chapter examines value commitments and the process of transformation through narratives. It attempts to expose those commitments, which shape a shared sense of cultural and national identity in the United States, and analyze the dynamic process of transformation that some soldiers experienced as they served in the war and experienced emotional and violent trauma. The chapter examines this dynamic process through the narrative patterns of a veteran as he describes the impact of specific moments in his tour that destabilized his original value commitments and understanding of the justification and objective of the war. The study also explores the degree to which this emotional trauma led to difficult questions of national and personal identity. Key Words: Iraq War, President G.W. Bush, veterans, narrative, identity transformation, dehumanization, liminal, attunement, shame, humiliation. ***** 1. Introduction On March 20, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. At the time of this writing, eight years later, what has become known as the occupation goes on. Many Iraq War veterans I interviewed for the larger study offered solemn testimonies of events both witnessed and committed since the Iraq War began. They revealed the personal grappling with intense and difficult questions they faced as they journeyed not only through the physical landscape of war, but also through the interior emotional landscape of personal transformation. As a co nsequence of the questions raised by their experiences in Iraq many of these veterans engaged in the critically reflective act of challenging the categories of old belief systems and of creating new ones. In this chapter, I explore the lived experiences of one individual who served in Iraq, but who, over time, began to question his previous thought-patterns and belief systems. For the individual represented in this chapter (who does not claim to speak for all veterans but only for himself), living the reality of the dominant narrative patterns broadened the gap between belief and experience to a cr isis point. Eventually, he constructed a counter narrative, which challenged the presenting narrative’s identification of the enemy, characterizations of self and other, the purpose of the mission and most importantly, the cultural assumptions that provided the moral justification and legitimacy of the war.

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__________________________________________________________________ The presenting explanation embedded in the 9/11/Iraq War narrative patterns fits an understanding of the world in which both good and evil exist as competing forces, creating an easily understood moral order in which characters and acts can be aligned. Thus, complexity was eliminated from the conflict narrative. A storyline emerges easily within this frame, situating actors and action in predictable positions. But questions concerning the legitimating narrative began to surface in the minds of many of the soldiers who lived the reality it c reated. Questions emerged slowly for some and suddenly for others, but resulted nonetheless in a process of painful destabilization of how they understood their nation and themselves. I draw from the literature on narrative facilitation, which stems from the assumption that perspectives can be transformed by expanding narratives. Mikhail Bahktin 1 argues that the world’s categories and structures are determined through dialogic processes; we interactively make meanings of experiences as we recount such experiences. A ‘turning point’ is the critical moment when the weight of positive and negative traits shift. A shift occurs during the presence of reflection, what Bahktin refers to as the ‘reflective double voice.’ The reflective double voice uses the voice of the other to question the self. It is this voice that opens space - the liminal space between one place and another - for turning points to occur and narratives to expand. 2 In this chapter I explore the dynamic process of narrative expansion experienced by one soldier and the trauma of identity questions that emerged as the storyline expanded and grew more complex. More voices were added - particularly those of Iraqi soldiers, civilians and military personnel. The linear storyline grew more circular and the fixed character roles fell apart. As these changes occurred, in the case presented here, beliefs, value commitments and a sense of identity began to change as well. 2. In Iraq: Living the Narrative – The Soldiers’ Stories Girl

You came to us eviscerated one day Not a sound did you make; we were all amazed Bowels tied with a t-shirt, Dark dried blood on your soft brown skin Just haunting curiosity at the death of your kin We bore your fear and disgust with self-righteous displays You sat quietly on a gurney all day We were so shocked at the carnage and pain You were so accepting and knew no blame

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__________________________________________________________________ You are the young and innocent we thought We had so much learn and so much to be taught We learned much later that you were a sage In a time and place consumed by rage Now we are back and can’t settle down Because we were educated on pain’s fertile ground Too bad the others don’t know what we know Or maybe it’s better to just let her go 3 The veterans I interviewed for the larger study expressed varying degrees of anger, shame and guilt over both the public storylines, which they soon discovered to be false, and the dehumanization of Iraqi soldiers and citizens, which contradicted the values and beliefs anchoring the narrative. For many of them, a new storyline emerged that challenged not only the basis of the old, but also the underlying cultural assumptions upon which the presenting narrative was constructed. The soldiers sent to confront the ‘evil betrayer’ 4 too often became the betrayed. Participant 6 (P6), who I will call Mike, described how he felt before being deployed to Iraq: It’s a bit like the allegory in the cave in that, you know, before my experience there and all the reading I did while I was there, you know, I was reacting to the shadows on the walls. I believed Colin Powell… and when he pulled him out 5, it was kind of like the knight in shining armour that’ll never lie to you or steal or tolerate those that do, but as the information slowly started coming in, you know, no WMD, etc., etc., it became harder to defend, and then I quit defending it. 6 Immediately after 9/11, Mike went into the Army (where he had served once before) because he viewed the attacks as a ‘declaration of war.’ He felt ‘shocked’ and ‘angry’ and unsure of what would happen next. He states that the government and media ‘fed’ the public fear so he ‘felt an obligation to join the military because … we were gonna be around the world, kicking in doors with paratroopers and everything.’ He wasn’t sent to Afghanistan, however, so after his one-year service expired he left the Army again and went to nursing school. 7 Mike had lived around the world, particularly in Muslim countries, and had studied Arabic and the history of the Middle East. He was critical of U.S. foreign policy in many countries before either of these wars occurred and believed that many people and nations experienced humiliation under U.S. dominance. Still, he supported the war in Afghanistan. He was, however, ‘surprised’ by the war in Iraq.

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__________________________________________________________________ Even so, he felt ‘this commitment to defend America … [and felt] it’s time for people to ante up and put their money where their mouth is, you know, get the people who did this.’ And he felt ashamed: I was raised in this kind of West Point family tradition where you share the burden and the danger of combat. When there’s a war going on and you’re in for three years and you haven’t been to combat at this point then you should feel ashamed of yourself, and so it was my thing. I mean, I went [back] in specifically to go to Iraq. 8 Over the course of his year of service it became harder and harder to ‘legitimize anything we were doing over there.’ One of the first things that happened to make him question the honesty of leaders and the moral legitimacy of the mission occurred during a medical conference while in Iraq. He tells this story: Everyone answered the questions correctly at the conference, but I was sitting in the audience going, ‘We don’t do that.’ There’s always this scenario: we have three units of blood left and we have ten patients and one of them is American. They all have similar wounds and similar needs and one is American, two are Iraqi army and two are Iraqi civilians, one of those being a child, and then an insurgent. And then they would play with that scenario and say, ‘Okay, the insurgent has a slightly higher need than the rest for the blood.’ And so not looking at who they are you’re supposed to treat the higher need first unless they’re not expected to live. You know, everyone knows the right answer ethically is to treat the most need we’re not there to judge what anyone is except as people. You know, they said, ‘yeah, well the most need would get it first.’ You know, I just started laughing. I’m like, ‘We don’t do that ever.’ Like the way we - we had an order of who we treated. Americans were always first and then came Iraqi civilians, then Iraqi army, then Iraqi police and then insurgents - and it wasn’t even when things were close, it was like, you know, the insurgent could have a terrible need for OR and the American could really wait awhile and they would take the American first. And the Kurdish population, they’re very supportive of us. They were higher than, say, an Arab family on the triage list because you assume an Arab family is producing more insurgents, you just assume that. 9

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__________________________________________________________________ The dehumanizing of Iraqis affected Mike deeply. He wrote poetry and short anecdotes of events that struck him harder perhaps than others. He wrote of one incident after a bad night filled with trauma patients from an IED blast: A major piece of shrapnel was seen on an X-ray of an Iraqi Army soldier who had lost his right arm. The decision was made to remove the piece. There was much concern that the image on the Xray was an unexploded ordinance. Many of the docs and nurses didn’t want to go in and risk being injured for a f-g ‘Haji.’ No one would have questioned going in for an American. 10 He attempted to capture his conflicted feelings through writing: It is interesting to see what a bomb does to bodies. The force blows human bone fragments into others. I once saw a person that had another person’s finger lodged in his belly. Our orthopaedic surgeon was quite pleased with himself when he determined it was the medial and distal phalange of the third digit. After that, he went to the gym with an interesting story to tell his friends at the ping-pong tournament … With time and fewer caregivers to feed my personal defences, I don’t laugh anymore. Funny how that stuff is, laugh one month, cry the next. I am ashamed of the things we made light of there. I wish I could go back sometimes and slap some people, including myself. I just took my Ambien and went to bed most of the time. 11 On R&R in April of 2006 Mike had the opportunity to view a segment of 60 Minutes. This moment also contributed to the increasing uncertainty towards the presenting narrative, his old thought patterns and the war itself. He states: It was all about Colonel M- and Tal Afar and how he has quelled the insurgency there and come up with a n ew model, and apparently that’s what the surge is based on … it’s all based on him and Tal Afar. I was working at the hospital at that time and Tal Afar was just a piece of shit. It was a Wild West show. We were getting patient’s all the time from bombs and snipers and - but on, on television, I’m sitting there watching, you know, they show this one guy, I think it’s a Civil Affairs guy, walking down the street, and all the kids were yelling his name. And they were making Tal Afar look like this haven, and I’m sitting there going, ‘That is nonsense’. It’s like one of our worst areas as far as casualties go. Things like that started really making me question everything. 12

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__________________________________________________________________ Mike experienced depression and an inability to sleep during his last six months in Iraq. He gained a lot of weight and began drinking more. His experiences began to contradict what he had previously believed or thought. He felt shocked, surprised and finally disillusioned. He states now that he is ‘probably more ashamed to be an American when I travel overseas than I have ever been in my life.’ And when he discusses the torture that took place in some prisons he states, ‘We should all be ashamed of ourselves at this point.’ Mike came from a family with a long military tradition. He believed Colin Powell’s testimony at the United Nations and actively sought to be sent to Iraq to serve his country. He believed in something he later came to see as a fabrication. 13 Working in a hospital where the helicopters flew in and out incessantly with new casualties, he saw first-hand the horror of war. And he states that most of the patients were not Americans, but Iraqi civilians and soldiers. After six months of witnessing lesser value placed on Iraqi lives and what he perceived as prevarications from media and leaders, he felt betrayed. As his experiences added complexity to his understanding of the presenting narrative, the basis for its simplistic storyline began to crumble. He experienced what Scheff describes as the process of change: the transitional emotion of surprise, which leads to the recognition of a hidden emotion. 14 Scheff argues that surprise moves us from one emotion to another - or from one attitude to another. Between the two – surprise and the recognition of a hidden emotion - is attunement. 15 Attunement is a brief moment of cognitive and emotional unity. This formula provides a way for understanding the dynamic process of change that can occur when a narrative is expanded, creating the ambiguity necessary to create a counter narrative by repositioning both self and a storyline. 16 Mike was clearly surprised, again and again. And in moments of attunement, gleaned from personal experiences, reading and media, the hidden emotion of shame surfaced. Together they transformed his consciousness. He argues now that: We need to move past the image of what tough is and what tough isn’t. Not using military force or even now not torturing or saying you’re against torture I think is perceived as weakness. To say ‘I don’t want any kind of torture…’ is seen as weak, you know, from this sort of American male militant perspective. We need to like somehow get rid of that. 17 Mike described critical turning points in which uncertainty was clearly present. Through his stories it is clear that these moments of critical reflection opened the liminal space necessary through which an individual can recognize competing moral frameworks that are interdependent. In this space, where attunement occurs, lies the location between social identities. Roles can shift, positions can alter and

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__________________________________________________________________ perspectives can be stripped of rigid, fixed traits. Indeed, for Mike, positions and previous belief systems did shift. It took him well over a year fighting depression, excessive use of alcohol and weight gain to come to terms with those changes. 18 3. Conclusion In this analysis I attempted to discover how Mike understood and responded to the 9/11, Iraq narrative patterns and to discern the location of shifts in his perspectives and attitudes toward the narrative patterns and the cultural assumptions embedded within. In effect, I explored the dynamic process of this individual’s transformation from a tacit acceptance of a grand narrative to a reflective consciousness that led to its rejection. One objective was to reveal the role of emotional engagement for transformation to occur. Therefore, it is hoped that this study will contribute to an enhanced understanding of emotions as significant but often over-looked variables concerning national and individual reactions to crises - reactions that far too often compel us to unwittingly continue a cycle of destruction and death. The dynamic and emotional process that individuals who lived the 9/11 Iraq narratives experienced led, for many, to a r ejection of both war and intellectual complacency. The physical journey through the brutal terrain of war imposed a psychological and emotional journey as well, one that transformed this veteran, and others, in small and great ways. Chris Hedges reminds us of the psychological and emotive forces that compel us to violence, but he also gives us reason to hope. If war (and violence) can provide meaning and purpose, then alternatives to violence exist. Human beings are capable of finding meaning and purpose through love, connection and empathy. The ‘aggressive structures of society’ can transform and create positive channels of energy in place of violent ones. 19 The journey of this and of all the veterans who served in Iraq provides a powerful and imperative lesson - not just for conflict practitioners - but also for all of us.

Notes 1

M. Bahktin, 20th century literary and linguistic scholar, is cited by S. Cobb in a lecture at the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, (2005). 2 Ibid. 3 Personal Interview with Participant 6, a veteran of the Iraq War who served 15 months during 2005-2006. In order to keep his identity confidential, I refer to him as P6 or Mike. The interview was conducted in Silver Spring, MD. 4 A reference to Saddam Hussein used by President Bush in several public speeches. 5 P6 (Mike) is referring to President Bush sending Colin Powell to speak at the United Nations in an attempt to gain international support for the Iraq narrative.

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__________________________________________________________________ 6

Personal Interview, 2005-2006, op. cit. Ibid. 8 Personal Interview, 2005-2006, op. cit. 9 Ibid. 10 Personal Interview, 2005-2006, op. cit. 11 Ibid. 12 Personal Interview, 2005-2006, op. cit. 13 Ibid. 14 Personal Interview, 2005-2006. See also J. Scheff, ‘Roots of War and Peace: Emotions and Bonds in Moral Shock’, a paper presented at the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies Conference at Columbia University, NY, 2005. 15 Attunement is similar to the liminal space described in narrative facilitation, the reflective double voice from Bakhtin and representational thinking conceptualized by Arendt as cited by Emirbayer and Mische. 16 See J. Scheff, ‘Roots of War and Peace’, 2005 and M. Emirbayer and A. Mische, ‘What is Agency?’ New School for Social Research, Vol. 103(4), pp. 962-1023. 17 Personal Interview, 2005-2006, op. cit. 18 Ibid. 19 See C. Hedges, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, Public Affairs, Cambridge, MA, 2002. 7

Bibliography Cobb, S., ‘Comments Made during Workshop Discussions’. Narrative Facilitation Workshop. George Mason University, Arlington, VA, 2007. Hedges, C., War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. Public Affairs, Cambridge, MA, 2002. Scheff, T.J., ‘Roots of War and Peace: Emotions and Bonds in Moral Shock’. Unpublished paper presented at the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies Conference. Columbia University, NY, December 2005. Winslade, J. and Monk, G., Narrative Mediation. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA, 2001. Pamela Creed holds a PhD in International Conflict Resolution from the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia. She currently lives in Belgrade where she teaches at the University of Belgrade and facilitates workshops in Peace Education for grassroots constituents in Serbia.

A Feel for the Organism: Cultural and Methodological Contexts of Trauma Psychology from a Somatic-Energetic Perspective Philip M. Helfaer Abstract The author, an experienced practitioner and teacher of bioenergetic analysis, a therapy based on a somatic-energetic point of view, considers this perhaps the most appropriate approach to work with sequelae of traumatic stress, addressing as it does mind, body, emotions, and energetic states. He finds a peculiar split in the therapeutic world, wherein virtually all institutions (medical, academic, veterans), do not utilize somatic-energetic work, while at the same time increasing numbers of practitioners and experts outside these institutions do recommend somaticenergetic approaches. He states this split has meaning. Exploration of these meanings reveals that cultural and sociological aspects of institutional life and of the society play the largest role in determining treatment modality, including what comes to be considered ‘evidence based’ treatments. The author suggests that attitudes and approaches based on thinking and perceiving influenced by dissociation and society’s capacity to recognize and deal with it, the very phenomena being studied, underlie a r estrictive way of examining the actual phenomena. He states that what is needed is the methodological underlay characterized in biology as ‘a feel for the organism,’ based on careful, caring, detailed observation. Naturalistic observation is missing from many approaches: it is inherent to the somatic-energetic point of view. Therefore what is required to institute this practice more widely in institutional life involves deep changes, socially and culturally, within the institutions, their values, and the culture of their professed scientific methodologies. Key Words: Bioenergetic analysis, trauma, therapy, somatic-energetic, a feel for the organism, methodology in psychology, scientific method and culture, dissociation, self as body. ***** 1. A Question Where is the body in current therapies of trauma? My observations and questions are based on forty years of clinical experience working in the somatic-energetic therapy named bioenergetic analysis. From my experience, I have gained a degree of understanding, a capacity for observation, and a set of conceptual and analytic tools. 1 Searching for answers to this question led me to some observations on the culture and institutions within which the research and treatment of trauma occurs.

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__________________________________________________________________ Two observations about the surface of our cultural situation: 1. The professional context, both in Israel and the U.S., is characterized by a p eculiar split. The somatic therapies are not taught or practiced in academic, veterans, or medical institutions. Two recent handbooks on PTSD, edited by essentially the same people, 2 make no mention of somatic oriented therapies. 3 2. At the same time, somatic approaches are advocated by a growing number of practitioners and by a growing number of recognized experts working outside these institutions. 4 The International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis has a membership of about one thousand members from Europe, North and South America, Israel, and New Zealand. Bioenergetic analysis is distinguished by providing the conceptual and perceptual tools for a t horough analysis of the somatic-energetic aspects of personality, by a d evelopmental perspective, and by a d ynamic and functional conception of character and personality. It is thus a comprehensive (as well as the oldest) approach to the study of individual functioning in terms of somaticenergetic process. There are other significant somatic (not necessarily energetic) approaches. 5 To those of us who work with and understand the somatic oriented therapies, nothing could be more self-evident than that this is often the most appropriate approach to working with trauma spectrum disorders. Clinical outcomes are positive. From a theoretical perspective, traumatic memory is commonly understood to be encoded as sensation, body feeling, and other sensory experience. The most direct approach to these ‘unconscious’ memories is through the senses and energetic processes. Empirical evidence of efficacy for bioenergetic analysis is slowly developing. 6 3. And a preliminary conclusion: Introducing somatically oriented therapies for trauma into these institutions means changing their culture. It is not simply a matter of establishing empirical evidence supporting the approaches. And from here I find that: 4. The scientific literatures around evidence based practices show revealing distortions. And most importantly:

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__________________________________________________________________ 5. What I believe is the missing element in understanding and developing trauma treatment is what in biology has been named ‘a feeling for the organism.’ In psychology we could combine this with ‘a feeling for the person.’ These observations (1-5) developed from learning to look, observe, experience, and see. 2. The Split Is Meaningful I believe that this surface split is meaningful. It has implications for how trauma and its effects are understood. It has implications for the meaning of establishing evidence based treatments. It means that the introduction into institutional and professional life of somatic-energetic approaches to treatment entails social change - change in institutions and culture, more so than science. At a superficial level is the consideration that most institutional offices are not set up to accommodate the movements or sounds (even deep crying) that might ensue from a patient working through traumatic memories in a somatic-energetic therapy. Further, to work with the body in a therapy inevitably means to be in the presence of intense emotion. To be comfortable with these expressions requires training and experience, including of one’s own deep emotions. This is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially in the professions. A third, surface aspect, has to do with status in the professions; and the body approaches do not establish status in the institutions. These observations reflect the culture and sociological characteristics of the milieus in which trauma studies tend to occur and in which professionals reside. 3. Deeper Aspects: Who and what are We Treating? And is It a Treatment? A treatment in bioenergetic analysis begins with observation of the patient, and he or she is a co-explorer in the process. Cognitive behavioral approaches, for the most part, begin with a model of what the disturbance is, and proceed with the protocol for it. Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD (PET) 7 is a paradigmatic example. The model is based on the idea of the ‘fear structure.’ It is not my purpose to criticize this therapy, but to contrast it with the significantly different approach of bioenergetic analysis. In a bioenergetic analysis, I want to know who the person is and exactly how the trauma spectrum disorder is functioning in his or her person. This is a demanding process for both therapist and patient. However, it offers the possibility of the widest range of opportunities for (posttraumatic) growth. In addition, it offers the widest range of opportunities for learning about trauma spectrum disorders: what they are in terms of how they affect the individual, how they function in the individual, how they arise in the first place, and how they develop over time. The first questions are still, who is the person and how is he or she functioning?

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. An Ironic Question: Why is Somatic-Energetic Therapy not the Primary Model for Treatment? There are two ‘cases’ to consider in relation to this question. 1.

The cognitive-behavioral therapies were widely adopted amongst academic psychologists. Jonathan Shedler, an American psychologist and psychoanalyst, describes the eagerness with which the academic community, excluded for so many years from organized psychoanalysis, greeted news of the efficacy of non-analytic techniques; 8 and they promulgated the notion that psychodynamic therapy was not supported by ‘scientific evidence.’ It is not surprising, as well, that ‘the body,’ especially the body-as-the-person, has not found much place in the curricula of academic psychology departments.

2. The ‘case’ of psychoanalytic tradition is more complex. Somatic-energetic therapy grew out of early psychoanalysis, specifically originating with Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957). While many of his colleagues followed Reich in his development of character analysis, they did not follow him into the somatic realm. However, amongst perhaps the majority of psychoanalytic writers, the self is considered as the body. W. W. Meissner, a senior psychoanalytic scholar in Boston, U.S.A., wrote an important series of articles about the body in psychoanalysis. 9 His statement that the self is a body-self is appropriate for a bioenergetic textbook: .... Both of these aspects (self as subject and self as object) are inextricably immersed (sic) in bodily functions, so that any comprehensive theory of the self has to connote the embeddedness and intimate integration of the self as inherently bodily. I will argue … that all psychic functions are inherently involved in bodily processes of one sort or another. 10 In its entirety this is as clear and eloquent a s tatement as there can be, and it could be taken as the first premise for a theory of bioenergetic analysis. So what happened? Simply, this is not how psychoanalysis developed. As Meissner states,

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__________________________________________________________________ On the couch bodily manifestations continue unabated .... If these behavioral manifestations are important as direct expressions of bodily processes, they must take a b ackseat to the specifically verbal behavior that constitutes the core of observational data in psychoanalysis. 11 In other words, we see, but we do not make use of these data in psychoanalysis; they are not the basis for determining therapeutic interventions. Meissner reflects the accepted analytic posture. Psychoanalytic theory encompasses a conception of self as body-self, and at the same time bodily, somatic-energetic interventions are not a part of the technique. This is how it stands! Might we not find it strange? Fereneczi and, much more so, Reich, pointed the way to a technique with a somatic orientation. Their lead was not followed, even though, for over onehundred years now, there have been, as Meissner comments, 12 two bodies in the therapeutic consulting room. How and why did somatic-energetic technique and theory become split off from psychoanalysis? 5. Confusion of Tongues I cannot claim a definitive answer to this question. I believe, nonetheless, that the question is worth asking. In any case, given the differences in technique and theory, I believe it was necessary and advantageous for bioenergetic analysis to develop separately and in its own milieu; perhaps this is still the case. Now, however, I also believe there would be great gains, especially in the treatment of trauma, if bioenergetic analysis and other somatic-energetic therapies were to find a place within various institutional worlds. For this to happen, the question needs to be pursued. Recently, when I spoke with another professional therapist about the somaticenergetic approach, she said, ‘You are talking a different language.’ Really? Is there something about bringing the body into the psychotherapy field that introduces a new language? As if ‘the language of the body’ were not a part of ‘regular’ language? Do we enter a different land, a different culture? I consider that her response is quite characteristic of a n umber of people I have spoken with recently. It is certainly true that we introduce a new perspective, or as I have been calling it, point of view. It is also true that we talk about different phenomena, bodily and energetic. However, these, as indicated in the discussion of Meissner’s writing, are not phenomena that are not observed in other therapies. In our therapy, they are looked at differently, and they are put into their (rightfully, as I see it), core place in the therapy. Sandor Ferenczi (1873-1933) was one of Freud’s closest collaborators. Like Reich, he was original and creative, and like Reich he returned the idea of sexual trauma to being the central etiological factor in neurosis. He wrote a remarkable

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__________________________________________________________________ paper called ‘Confusion of Tongues’ (1932). 13 I find in it a reflection of my colleague’s comment, ‘You are talking a different language.’ Ferenczi is referring to the radical difference between a child seeking or expressing warmth, love, and tenderness to a parent or other adult, and the adult responding with adult sexual passion. They do not speak the same language. Is it possible that the intrinsic difficulty, avoidance, shame, and horror of facing traumatic sequelae are at work in the avoidance and rejection of the body in the field of psychotherapy? I am inclined to believe so. Disassociation and denial are somatic-energetic phenomena: they always involve the denial or disassociation from specific bodily experiences, sensations, or emotions related to them. In the case of complex developmental traumas, denial and disassociation readily become embedded in characterological developments. For people who become therapists, including somatic-energetic therapists, this kind of development, in my experience, is hardly uncommon. Inevitably, they themselves avoid aspects of their own body experiences. In this and other ways, the profession itself can become complicit in supporting a prevailing social ethos of denial, even of disassociation. Identifying and working with disassociation, denial, and ‘forgetting’ remain challenges, as do the whole range of traumatic sequelae, despite their long history in the field of psychotherapy. 14 6. Methodological Disarray Methodological disarray is another aspect to this picture, also reflective of the current ethos in psychological research. While cognitive-techniques of various kinds are often considered state-of-the art, evidence based techniques, there are several different approaches within the larger cognitive-behavioral domain, and these approaches continue to evolve. 15 In some clinical settings, the therapeutic paradigm involves an amalgam of various protocols. 16 The field is quite fluid, and paradigms are shifting. The clinical process by which choices are made between various approaches and various aspects of different approaches lies outside the protocols of the specific therapies which make up the amalgam. What is the theoretical basis for these choices and the therapeutic process other than the clinician’s sensitivity, creativity, and experience? A somatic-energetic understanding of the person can fill this gap, encouraging a more holistic process. In addition, ‘Third wave’ 17 cognitive-behavioral techniques are being developed which frankly include or are based on, not learning theory, but on conceptions such as mindfulness and acceptance. 18 These practices are in fact embedded (in theory and in practice) in bioenergetic analysis. Of even more interest is the state of ‘the state of the art’ research evidence. Shedler’s review showed psychodynamic therapy having efficacy comparable to important cognitive-behavioral approaches (DBT), and longer lasting effects.

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__________________________________________________________________ ... the available evidence indicates that effect sizes for psychodynamic therapies are as large as those reported for other treatments that have been actively promoted as ‘empirically supported’ and ‘evidence based.’ 19 This is significant because until very recently, psychodynamic therapy has been considered an unsubstantiated modality. Like bioenergetic analysis, its goals are the development of the whole person, as a self. Shedler’s survey has further significance. He reviewed studies of cognitive behavioral approaches in which the effectiveness of the treatment did not result from the cognitive behavioral concept, but when its application involved characteristics of psychodynamic therapy! It indicates that the (often unacknowledged) ‘active ingredients’ of other therapies include techniques and processes that have long been core, centrally defining features of psychodynamic treatment. ... 20 I am not trying to invalidate cognitive-behavioral approaches. I believe they are important and useful. However, the methodology from which empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of these approaches does not get into the grain of the process of the therapy, nor, in fact, into a d eeper understanding of the psychobiological processes involved. Further, the therapeutic protocols may themselves be influenced by their amenability to a r esearch design. These inadequacies are supported within institutional culture and practice. 7. A Feel for the Organism In psychology the drive toward ‘evidence based’ treatments, ‘proven to work,’ has evolved out of a particular culture and has aided in sustaining that culture as the status quo. I am not against empirical research, nor consensual validation. What is happening, however, is that what may be good research may be poor psychology that lacks a psychological and observational feel for the issues of treatment. The phrase, ‘a feel for the organism,’ is used in a particular way in biology, for example in reference to the work of the Nobel prize winning geneticist, Barbara McClintock 21 and, of course, to Charles Darwin. 22 It refers to ‘theoretical ideas guiding and aided by keen observations of meticulous details, (and) excellent knowledge of natural history’. 23 The development of a t herapeutic approach must be based on a f eel for the organism, and, since the organism is the human being, it must be supplemented by a feel for the person. These are acquired by observation, ‘guided by theoretical ideas and aided by keen observation of meticulous details.’24

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__________________________________________________________________ Observation is the first and last essential of scientific method. In the therapeutic situation, it is the first and last method of the therapist. The somatic-energetic point of view is essentially a set of conceptual and perceptual skills based in experiential training to guide the therapist’s observation of the patient.

Notes 1

P.M. Helfaer, Sex and Self-Respect: The Quest for Personal Fulfillment, Bioenergetics Press, Alachua, FL, 1998/2006. 2 E. Foa, T.M. Keane, M.J. Friedman and J.A. Cohen (eds), Effective Treatments for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Second Edition, Guilford Press, NY, 2009; M.J. Friedman, T.M. Keane and P.A. Resick (eds), Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice, Guilford Press, NY, 2007. 3 I do not consider EMDR a body therapy. 4 For example: R. Scaer, The Body Bears the Burden. Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, The Haworth Medical Press, Binghamton, NY, 2001 and R. Scaer, The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency, W.W. Norton & Co, NY, 2005. See also B. van der Kolk, A.C. McFarlane and L. Weisath, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society, The Guilford Press, NY, 2006 and B. van der Kolk, ‘The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Emerging Psychobiology of Post-Traumatic Stress’, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, Vol. 1(5), 1994, pp. 253-265. 5 P.A. Levine, Waking the Tiger, North Atlantic Press, Berkeley, CA, 1997; P. Ogden, K. Minton and C. Pain, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, W.W. Norton, NY, 2006. 6 M. Koemeda-Lutz, M. Kaschke, D. Revenstorf, T. Scherrmann, H. Weiss and U. Soeder, ‘Preliminary Results Concerning the Effectiveness of BodyPsychotherapies in Outpatient Settings – A Multi-Centre Study in Germany and Switzerland’, The US Body Psychotherapy Journal, Vol. (4) 2, 2005, pp. 13-32. 7 E.B. Foa, E.A. Hembree and B.O. Rothbaum, Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences, Therapist Guide, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007. 8 J. Shedler, ‘The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Therapy’, American Psychologist, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010, pp. 98-109. 9 W.W. Meissner, ‘The Self and the Body: I. The Body Self and the Body Image’, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1997, pp. 419-48; W.W. Meissner, ‘The Self and the Body: II. The Embodied Self – Self vs NonSelf’, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 21, No.1, 1998a, pp. 85111; W.W. Meissner, ‘The Self and the Body: III. The Body Image in Clinical Perspective’, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1998b, pp. 113-146; and W.W. Meissner, ‘The Self and the Body: IV. The Body on the

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__________________________________________________________________ Couch’, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1998c, pp. 277-300. 10 Meissner, 1997, pp. 420-421. 11 Meissner, 1998c, p. 281. 12 Meissner, 1998c, pp. 278-79. 13 Van Haute and Geyskens, 2004, p. 89. 14 J. Stern, Denial, Harper Collins Publisher, NY, 2010. In this personal memoir, Stern explores the ethos of denial in relation to the effects of sexual violence and abuse in the United States in the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. She believes her observations are relevant to understanding the problem of PTSD of returning veterans. Stern is known for her work on terrorism and terrorists. 15 V.M. Follette, K.M. Palm and M.L. Rasmussen Hall, ‘Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Trauma’, Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition, S.C. Hayes, V.M. Follette and M.M. Linehan (eds), The Guilford Press, NY, 2004, pp. 192-208; C.M. Monson, M.J. Friedman and H. La Bash, ‘A Psychological History of PTSD’, Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice, M.J. Friedman, T.M. Keane and P.A. Resick (eds), 2007, Guilford, NY, 2007, pp. 3752; J. Shedler, ‘The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Therapy’, American Psychologist, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010, pp. 98-109. 16 Follette, et al., 2004. 17 Monson, et al., 2007, p. 47. 18 Follette, et al., 2004. 19 Shedler, 2010, p. 107. 20 Ibid., p. 107. 21 E.F. Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1983. 22 E. Szathmary, ‘Darwin for All Seasons’, Science, Vol. 313, 2006, p. 306, retrieved at http://www.sciencemag.org, Published by AAAS. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid.

Bibliography Foa, E.B., Hembree, E.A. and Rothbaum, B.O., Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences, Therapist Guide. Oxford University Press, New York, 2007.

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__________________________________________________________________ Foa, E.B., Keane, T.M., Friedman, M.J. and Cohen, J.A., Effective Treatments for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Second Edition, Guilford Press, NY 2009. Follette, V.M., Palm, K.M. and Rasmussen Hall, M.L., ‘Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Trauma’. Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition. Hayes, S.C., Follette, V.M. and Linehan, M.M. (eds), The Guilford Press, NY, 2004. Friedman, M.J., Keane, T.M. and Resick, P.A. (eds), Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice. Guilford Press, NY, 2007. Hayes, S.C., Follette, V.M. and Linehan, M.M. (eds), Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition. The Guilford Press, NY, 2004. Helfaer, P.M., Sex and Self-Respect: The Quest for Personal Fulfillment. Bioenergetics Press, Alachua, FL, 1998/2006. Keller, E.F., A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1983. Koemeda-Lutz, M., Kaschke M., Revenstorf, D., Scherrmann T., Weiss, H. and Soeder, U., ‘Preliminary Results Concerning the Effectiveness of BodyPsychotherapies in Outpatient Settings: A Multi-Centre Study in Germany and Switzerland’. The US Body Psychotherapy Journal. Vol. (4) 2, 2005, pp. 13-32. Levine, P.A., Waking the Tiger. North Atlantic Press, Berkeley CA, 1997. Meissner, W.W., ‘The Self and the Body: I. The Body Self and the Body Image’. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 20, No.4, 1997, pp. 419-48. ____

, ‘The Self and the Body: II. The Embodied Self – Self vs Non-Self’. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 21, No. 1, 1998a, pp. 85-111. ____

, ‘The Self and the Body: III. The Body Image in Clinical Perspective’. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 21, No. 1, 1998b, pp. 113-146. ____

, ‘The Self and the Body: IV. The Body on the Couch’. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 21, No. 2, 1998c, pp. 277-300.

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__________________________________________________________________ Monson, C.M., Friedman, M.J. and La Bash, H., ‘A Psychological History of PTSD’. Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice. Friedman, M.J., Keane, T.M. and Resick, P.A. (eds), Guilford Press, NY, 2007. Ogden, P., Minton, K. and Pain, C., Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. W.W. Norton, NY, 2006. Scaer, R., The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease. The Haworth Medical Press, Binghamton, NY, 2001. ____

, The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency. W.W. Norton, NY, 2005. Shedler, J., ‘The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Therapy’. American Psychologist. Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010, pp. 98-109. Stern, J., Denial. Harper Collins Publisher, NY, 2010. Szathmáry, E., ‘Darwin for All Seasons’. Science. Vol. 313, 2006, p. 306. van Haute, P. and Geyskens, T., Confusion of Tongues: The Primacy of Sexuality in Freud, Ferenczi, & LaPlanche. Other Press, NY, 2004. van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A.C. and Weisath, L., Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society. The Guilford Press, NY, 2006 van der Kolk, B., ‘The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Emerging Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress’. Harvard Review of Psychiatry. Vol. 1(5), 1994, pp. 253-265. Philip M. Helfaer, Ph.D., originally from U.S.A., resides with his wife, Vellie, in Israel, where he has been coordinating trainer for the Israel Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis. He has studied, practiced, and taught this discipline for forty years, and continues to seek to understand the nature of traumatic experience and its effects in the individual and society. Contact at [email protected]. Further references for author at http://www.bioenergeticanalyis.org.il.

Psychoanalysis and Trauma: Changes in the Theory and the Practice, from Freud to the Shoah Clara Mucci Abstract After a b rief presentation of Freud’s and Ferenczi’s different positions within the psychoanalytic theory of trauma, the author analyses some relevant developments in this theory, made necessary after twentieth century’s wars and genocides and especially after the Shoah, which meant a watershed in history and in the notion of massive social trauma. Working in psychotherapy with survivors and the following generations means an active work in the reconstruction of the reality of the event: reconstructing the truth as carefully as possible is the only way to avoid the compulsion to repeat in the second and third generations and to reduce the devastating effects of trauma in individuals and in society. Key Words: Trauma, pychoanalysis, intergenerational trauma, reality, history, fantasy, reparation, ethics. ***** 1. Freud and Ferenczi: The Theory of Trauma at the Beginning As is well known, Freud’s theorization of trauma starts with his practice with female patients who had developed hysterical symptoms. At the beginning, he thought that the cause of the symptoms was repression of a real event that he terms ‘seduction,’ something we would call abuse or even sexual abuse nowadays. He distinguishes between a first moment, in which the prepubertal stimulation by an adult is not at first perceived as sexual by the child, and a s econd moment, after puberty, that gives the first episode its meaning and fixates its traumatic core, in a deferred action that Freud calls ‘nachtraglich.’ It is only after this second moment that the first episode is repressed and, if something goes wrong in this defensive process, a hysterical symptom might be formed. Freud continuously revises his theory: his major doubt was about the reality of the seduction; was it a real event or an imagined, fantasied one? The watershed in this debate can be found in the famous letter to Fliess on 21 September 1897, in which he abandons his theory of actual sexual abuse in favour of the fantasied version of it, for several reasons. He considers this discovery a dramatic ‘collapse of everything valuable’ 1; however he continues throughout his life to vacillate between acknowledging actual abuse or theorizing fantasied seduction. In fact in 1916-17 he states that in neuroses ‘it is psychical reality which is the decisive kind.’ 2 Traumatization as a result seems to be the outcome of both external and internal sources. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle he develops a new view of trauma as the result of the break of an internal shield against an overwhelming stimulum; both the shield and the stimulum are

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__________________________________________________________________ relevant to the traumatization and are linked to individual features. What is bearable for somebody (similar stimulum) might not be for another being (because the threshold is lower and the impact therefore more devastating). If the excitement is greater than what the system can bear, traumatization is created, and the apparatus goes back to a previous state of development; it is at this point that the death principle or the compulsion to repeat is involved: in order to try to abreact or free the system from the overwhelming excitation, the individual is forced to repeat the event with its psychic and physical symptoms in an effort to overcome it and dispel it. As a consequence, the system is trapped in the repetition of the trauma as if it were always happening in the present, with no time frame. In fact, the traumatic time is always current, through flashbacks, memories and other mechanisms which lead back to the past situation (as in dreams, for instance). Another way to react to trauma (as the hysterics show in their behaviour) is to delete the memory of the event and to create a physical symptom instead. In another writing, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, Freud states that a traumatic situation can occur both as a r esult of excessive external events or excessive internal instinctual demands. The ego is therefore overwhelmed with anxiety. We are still within a psycho-economic model of trauma. This was still a time for psychoanalysis in which drive-related conflicts and fixations of the libido were the fundamental concepts, therefore trauma was not a major preoccupation for the aetiology of mental disorders. We have to wait until the 1950s and the studies on the early childhood development to arrive at a new concern with trauma; in addition, the catastrophes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with the increase of social violence and also aggression within the families, and with a concern for the abuse and maltreatment of children and women, have brought to the fore a new consideration for trauma and its consequences in psychoanalysis. An exception to this kind of theorization at the time of Freud and in a sense an exception to the neglect of the relevance of trauma for pathology came from Sandor Ferenczi, who never doubted that his patients had been traumatized as an effect of real events and real abuse. To Freud who asked how he could be sure that the patients were not presenting fantasies of seduction, he would say that several patients actually acknowledged that they had abused children, therefore they were the perpetrators. Clearly, external events were of fundamental importance in understanding the real impact of trauma; Ferenczi was also the initiator of a new therapeutic attitude when working with traumatized patients: contrary to Freud’s distant and neutral stance, he proposed a m ore empathic and sincere, honest attitude, in which even the vulnerability of the analyst and his feelings could come out in the open if necessary. Re-establishing a strong trust between patient and analyst was for him the fundamental tool in therapy. Ferenczi analyses with incredible intuition elements related to trauma that would be discussed only several decades later, for instance the splitting of the traumatized ego, the numbness and blocking of affects, the possible identification

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__________________________________________________________________ with the aggressor and the sense of guilt that comes with that (the child is imbued with the guilt that comes originally from the aggressor). Finally, a turning point for psychoanalytic theory and a deeper understanding of treatment is his famous work ‘Confusion of tongues between adults and the child,’ 3 in which the difference in attitude between parent and child is stressed, the latter being in need only of tenderness, the former trapped in a sort of passion which might become a sexual intrusion onto the child. His work was rejected by Freud and his community at the time. Nowadays, it has been re-evaluated and is appreciated, to the point of making Ferenczi the initiator of the intersubjective and interpersonal trend of psychoanalysis. 2. Further Developments Since the 1950s, with Kris and Sandler (‘strain trauma,’ Masud Khan, (‘cumulative trauma’), Bowlby (‘deprivation trauma’), the relationship of the child to the caregiver and vice versa and the importance of the object relation created between them has acquired more and more relevance. But the problem was, is this concept of trauma, that which is created within the relation between a d eficient mother, or caregiver, and the child, similar to the massive, extreme trauma human beings face in war, genocide, extermination (also involving human agency and not catastrophic natural events)? In the case of relational trauma, the damage occurs within a relationship, more than being caused by a single event with a repercussion on the psyche of the subject. When physical abuse of a ch ild is concerned, for instance, more than the physical injury what is experienced as traumatic is that the maltreatment comes from the person who should be taking care of the child (most of the times a third person, the mother usually, is a passive onlooker, which results in additional traumatization as a breach in trust for the child). In the case of incest, the situation is even more complicated, and traditional psychoanalytic approaches based on Oedipal complex and seduction fantasies even suggested some kind of participation on behalf of the child in the actual event, that is, the child’s seductive contribution. Luckily enough, in the 1980s there was a change in attitude in the psychoanalytic community; it was the time in which the controversial repressed memory debate, especially in the States and in English speaking countries, exploded. As has already been noted, in psychoanalysis the unconscious fantasies and the repressed memories are equally difficult to trace and at the same time both contribute to pathology, and therefore the validity of childhood memories captured through an adult psychoanalytic psychotherapy is difficult to prove. The present debate has become a discussion about memory and ways of encoding the traumatic memory. 4 It would appear that traumatic memories are specifically encoded because of the hyperarousal attached to them. More than a semantic memory, the traumatic trace becomes a state of affect, a smell, a physical sensation, especially if it is a v ery early memory: since the encoding of memories takes place through a

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__________________________________________________________________ word label, this is not possible if the child is too young and unable to speak. Besides, traumatic memories have a special quality that rests or is kept in the dissociative states. Recent research in relational trauma (early abuse and neglect in infancy) has revealed that, when the mother suffers from unresolved trauma, her chaotic and dysregulated alterations of state become imprinted into the developing brain and self-system of the child: ‘this intersubjective psychopathogenic mechanism thus mediates the psychobiological intergenerational transmission of both relational trauma and the dissociative defence against overwhelming and dysregulating affective states’ 5 and acts as a risk factor for later psychiatric disorders. From a developmental neuroscience perspective, the immediate impact is on the altered metabolic processes that poorly sustain the growth of the developing right brain capacity to regulate life stressors that generate intense affect states. 3. The Problem of Real vs Fantasied Trauma: The Case of the Holocaust The problem of whether the recovered memory is true or reconstructed through fantasy remains; but I would be very suspicious of a statement like this, coming from two very authoritative voices within the psychoanalytic field: ‘There can be only psychic reality behind a recovered memory–whether there is historical truth and historical reality is not our business as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.’ This a sentence by Peter Fonagy and Mary Target, writing an essay in a book dated 1997. 6 It is a very problematic stance, because it seems to imply that the difference between what has happened for sure and what did not happen is not important. As Werner Bohleber underlines: ‘Psychoanalysis, originally undertaken in order to discover repressed childhood memories, is now in danger of becoming a treatment technique that actually fades out history.’ 7 I could not agree more: if there is a feature characteristic of psychoanalysis throughout its developmental phases over the years and centuries, it is its contribution to the discovery of a kind of disguised or covered or repressed truth, therefore, an ethical stance lies at the core of the psychoanalytic practice, in my mind: psychoanalysis both in theory and in practice cannot but be a contribution to the restoration of truth in the individual and in society. I therefore agree totally with Ilse Grubrich-Simitis when she states that, when working with severely traumatized patients: the analyst has to resist not only his natural need to protect himself but also the tendency, reinforced by his training, to bypass reality and to devote his attention, from the beginning, to the patient’s fantasies. It is only to the extent that the historical reality is ascertained that the patient will be able to approach his own inner and outer reality. 8

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__________________________________________________________________ After the Holocaust and the occurrence of post-war disorders in the survivors, disorders which nonetheless came to the attention of psychoanalysts very late, something like 25 years later at least, it is not possible to accept that trauma and reality are not necessarily linked together and therefore I think the recuperation of historical truth is fundamental (as opposed to something that has been and still is fashionable in psychoanalysis, that is, narrative truth). The pioneer work of survivor analysts such as Judith and Milton Kestenberg, Milton Jucovy and Martin Bergmann, to mention a f ew, have established a co nnection between their persecutions and their symptoms, and several therapists have even indicated how traumatization might be carried through generations through a sort of unconscious repetition principle. After the Shoah, as Bohleber states: ‘the trauma theory that had been common up to then proved to be unsuitable to grasp the specific symptoms and the experience of the survivors.’ 9 It was not possible to use Freud’s stimulus barrier concept or other known theories: the experiences of the survivors called for a change in the theorization itself, or a s pecial effort in understanding. When the traumatization cannot be totally processed, the traumatization is carried through the lives of the children and the next generations, in a play between reality and fantasy (meaning, in this case, that even though the second generation did not face the reality of trauma it has lived through it in fantasy or better in psychological effects transferred between the generations, what Judith Kestenberg has called ‘transposition of symptoms’ and Ilany Kogan has termed ‘concretization’). Emotional numbing, inability to mourn, which ends in depression or melancholia, passivity and a masochistic life-style seem to be the major symptoms that are likely to be passed on. In the work with survivors a reconstruction of the reality of the event has therefore become fundamental not only for the recovery of truth in the first generation, but for the future generations. Not only the reconstruction of the details of the traumatic events are fundamental for the victim itself, but the careful reconstruction of truth that is possible only at a certain stage of the therapy has an impact on society at large, reconstructs a p iece of history that was lost. Reconstructing the truth as carefully as possible is the only way to avoid the compulsion to repeat through generations and therefore the devastating effects of the death principle at work. Further work on this aspect of trauma theory has been carried out by Dori Laub, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has survived a labour camp in Romania at the age of 5 and has worked with survivors and the following generations; he is also the co-founder of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at the University of Yale, USA. What is recovered through psychotherapy or even through a piece of testimony is a restoration of a missing piece of history for humanity. What was lost in the traumatic experience is the trust in the other, in the bond with the other human beings, which in part can be restored through the silent

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__________________________________________________________________ participation of a listener, a psychotherapist or a witness to the testimony, who is ‘totally present and totally committed.’ Therefore, Laub concludes, ‘what is needed for healing’ is the creation of a ‘testimonial community.’ 10 The same link between recuperation of the victim and reparation in society is underlined by Judith Herman, the author of Trauma and Recovery; with Herman I would stress that ‘remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of the individual victims.’ 11 Therefore, even the psychotherapeutic work carried out with the victim in the narrow space of the therapy room may assume a fundamental testimonial value which might end up with a form of healing and reparation of the community at large, restoring pieces of truth that belong to the entire social and historical body.

Notes 1

S. Freud, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904, J.M. Masson (ed), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1985, p. 266. 2 S. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Part III), Hogarth Press, London, 1916, p. 368. 3 See S. Ferenczi, ‘Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child’, International journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 30, 1949, pp. 225-230. 4 See for instance B. Van der Kolk, ‘Trauma and Memory’, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society, Guilford Press, New York, 1996, pp. 279-302. See also C. Mucci, Il dolore estremo. Il trauma da Freud alla Shoah, Borla, Roma, 2008. 5 A.N. Schore, ‘Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: The Neurobiology of Broken Attachment Bonds’, Relational Trauma in Infancy: Psychoanalytic and Neuropsychological Contributions to Parent-Infant Psychotherapy, 2010, p. 35. 6 P. Fonagy and M. Target, ‘Perspectives on the Recovered Memory Debate’, Recovered Memories of Abuse: True or False? Karnca, London, 1997, pp. 183216. 7 W. Bohleber, Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity, and Trauma: The Identity Crisis of Modern Psychoanalysis, Karnac, London, 2010, p. 109. 8 I. Grubrich-Simitis, ‘Extreme Traumatization as Cumulatie Trauma: Psychoanalytic Investigations of the Effects of Concentration Camp Experiences on Survivors and Their Children’. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 36, 1981, pp. 415-450. 9 Bohleber, op. cit., p. 87. 10 D. Laub, ‘From Speechlessness to Narrative: The Cases of Holocaust Historians and of Psychiatrically Hospitalized Survivors’, Literature and Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 2, Fall 2005, pp. 253-265.

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J.L. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, Basic Books, New York, 1992.

Bibliography Bohleber, W., Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity, and Trauma: The Identity Crisis of Modern Psychoanalysis. Karnac, London, 2010. Fonagy, P. and Target M., ‘Perspectives on the Recovered memory Debate’. Recovered Memories of Abuse: True or False? Karnac, London, 1997. Ferenczi, S., ‘Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child’. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Vol. 30, 1949, pp. 225-230. Freud, S., Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Part III). Hogarth Press, London, 1916. –– , Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Hogarth Press, London, 1920. ––, Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. Hogarth Press, London, 1926. ––, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1985. Grubrich-Simitis, I., ‘Extreme Traumatization as Cumulatie Trauma: Psychoanalytic Investigations of the Effects of Concentration Camp Experiences on Survivors and Their Children’. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Vol. 36, 1981, pp. 415-450. Herman, J.L., Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, New York, 1992. Laub, D., ‘From Speechlessness to Narrative: The Cases of Holocaust Historians and of Psychiatrically Hospitalized Survivors’. Literature and Medicine. Vol. 24, No. 2, Fall 2005, pp. 253-265. Mucci, C., Il dolore estremo. Il trauma da Freud alla Shoah. Borla, Roma, 2008. Schore, A.N., ‘Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: The Neurobiology of Broken Attachment Bonds’. Relational Trauma in Infancy: Psychoanalytic and Neuropsychological Contributions to Parent-infant Psychotherapy, 2010.

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__________________________________________________________________ Van der Kolk, B.,‘Trauma and Memory’. Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society. Guilford Press, New York, 1996. Clara Mucci, PhD., Emory University, Atlanta, USA, and Dottore di Ricerca, University of Genoa, Italy, is Full Professor of English Literature and English Renaissance Drama at the University of Chiety, Italy, where she also teaches Clinical Psychology. A clinical psychologist trained psychoanalytically, in private practice in Pescara and Milan, she specialized in Borderline Disorders at the Personality Disorder Institute of New York, directed by Otto Kernberg. She is the author of six monographies on Shakespearean Drama, Women’s Literature, Psychoanalysis and Trauma.

Touring the Traumascape: ‘War Tours’ in Sarajevo Patrick Naef Abstract If the link between war and tourism has already received considerable academic and media attention, the spatial representation of war in the tourism sector is still emerging in the fields of cultural geography and anthropology. In this chapter I seek to explore the reconversion and touristification of sites traumatised by war which I have approached using the concept of Traumascape - by presenting a case study in the Balkan region, Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This city lived through a terrible and traumatic siege during the Balkan war of the 1990s and is now undergoing a process of post-conflict reconstruction. Tourists are now coming back to the region and many are eager to visit the war heritage left by the conflict. So-called ‘war tours’, leading tourists through war-affected areas, are appearing in the town: the Times of Misfortune Tour and the Mission Impossible Tour. The touristification of these sites and of the Balkan war in general raises many questions in terms of the representation and interpretation of a collective and recent trauma: why are certain sites ‘touristified’ and others not? Can tourism foster cooperation and reconciliation between divided communities? Can tourism be a vector of expression for silent or peripheral voices? What is the relationship between these sites and those who visit them? Key Words: Heritage, tourism, war, memorabilia, Balkan, Sarajevo, dark tourism, trauma, traumascape. ***** 1. Introduction This chapter will explore a case study taking place in a city characterized by the siege it lived through during what was commonly named as the ‘Balkan war’ in the nineties. It will present the way some sites closely connected to this war are reconverted, with a particular focus on their touristification. Indeed, Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is now exposing sites specifically linked to the war to tourists through what is labelled as ‘war tours’. On one hand, the tourism office proposes the Times of Misfortune Tour (Figure 1) and on the other hand, a private guide introduced the war torn heritage of the city through a tour called the Mission Impossible Tour. For a good comprehension of the following text, it is important to first clarify the concept of traumascape in order to illuminate its transformation into a touristscape. Furthermore now that tourists - local and foreign - come back to visit the region and the stigmata of war, the reconversion and the touristification of those traumascapes raise a number of questions in terms of the interpretation and representation of a collective trauma, but also regarding economic and

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__________________________________________________________________ territorial development, and even reconciliation and social cohesion: Why are some sites rehabilitated and others not? Can tourism foster reconciliation between divided communities? Can tourism be a vector of expression for silent voices? Or on the opposite side, could the touristification of traumatic elements aim to serve the powers in place? Finally, while situating a trauma like war in an industry close to leisure, don’t we risk disconnecting it from its traumatic history?

Figure 1: Advertising for the Time of Misfortune Tour. (Tourism Board of Sarajevo) 2. From Traumascape to Touristscape Before taking a close look at the touristification of sites traumatized by war it is important to explore the notion of traumascape, which Maria Tumarkin defines as a distinct category of places transformed physically and psychically by a trauma: ‘[…] traumascapes become much more than physical settings of tragedies: They emerge as spaces where events are experienced and re-experienced across time.’ 1 A trauma, which can be linked to war, natural disaster or even a terrorist attack, is not only embodied in the place and the event, but in the way this place and event are lived, experienced and represented through time. In this context tourism can become a vector of experience and interpretation of the trauma and the place it is associated with. Sarajevo is even part of the seven cases that Tumarkin uses as

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__________________________________________________________________ examples to illustrate her concept of traumascape in her founding book. I’ve chosen to identify some landmarks of this traumascape that is Sarajevo. The city is now under a process of post-war reconstruction and tourism is developing moderately. Foreign visitors have come back to Bosnia-Herzegovina in a significant way since 2005 and Sarajevo is the main destination in the country. The possibility is given for tourists to follow guided tours through the city focusing on the war heritage of the place. Those tours are sometimes presented as ‘historical’ or ‘memorial’ tours and sometimes also referred to as ‘war tours’. In the next part of this chapter, a closer look is going to be taken at the way some of those war sites are presented and interpreted. ‘You see smiling people, nice dresses… happy foreigners. It’s good… But now you are going to see the bad side of Sarajevo. Places that are not in the map. Places that are not recommended. Places that are covered.’ 2 Those are the words that the private tour guide Zijad Jusufovic uses to introduce me to the visit that is going to lead me through the ruins of the last war. In Sarajevo, different tours are offered to visitors willing to see landmarks related to the war. The Times of Misfortune tour is organized by the Sarajevo tourism office and proposes, after a b rief city centre sightseeing in a minibus, to visit what’s called the Tunnel of Hope (Figure 2). This tunnel was the only connection between the besieged city and the external world during the war. Since it got abandoned by the Bosnian army at the end of the war, it’s now a museum run privately by the family Kollar who owns the house where the entry is situated. Existing for 15 years without any governmental support, this place is becoming the most visited site of the Bosnian capital, experiencing hundreds of daily visitors.

Figure 2: Entrance of the Tunnel of Hope. (By the author, 2010) The official tours organized by the tourism office are generally guided by students, who were often in asylum during the war and now have the advantage of speaking foreign languages, even though most of them didn’t live through the siege

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__________________________________________________________________ of the nineties. Those tours are now very popular and one of the guides hired by Sarajevo tourism office, also leading other type of tours, even states that: ‘the Times of Misfortune tour is the most demanded of our tours with the Historical tour’. 3 On an another hand, the Mission Impossible tour is independently organized by Zijad Jusufovic, a former fixer who used to guide and help humanitarians and UN soldiers during the war. This guide proposes a more complete panorama of sites, including, among others, the old bobsleigh track shelled during the war, the ruins of the anti-fascist monument, the burnt down library and what he calls ‘the Mujahidin Market’ next to the Kralj Fahd Džamija (King Fahd Mosque). This guide presents himself as the first legitimate post-war guide and insists on the impartiality and the veracity of his discourse, and on the uniqueness of his presentation. He frequently points out his experience of the war and the large work of post-war inquiries he led the last ten years. He doesn’t hesitate to question tourist office guides information, employing a certain liberty of speech unavailable, in comparison, to other less independent actors, saying for instance that they wouldn’t talk about black market or the existing idea of the construction of a second tunnel during the war. In his opinion, ‘Young guides, especially those speaking foreign language, weren’t here during the siege, there is a lot of things they can’t know’. 3. Private Memorials for Silent Voices? The city of Sarajevo is experiencing a social and political dislocation and the freezing of numerous reconstruction and renovation projects. The antifascist monument could be a good illustration of this process. This landmark was edified by Tito after the second war and destroyed in the nineties. Before this last war it was well known as a p lace for school visits as well as a venue for official ceremonies. After the Dayton agreements, a b order dividing the two entities was established, crossing the ruins of the monument with the purpose of sharing the place equally between the different communities. For Zijad Jusufovic this led to a statu quo on every potential renovation project: Dayton agreement put the border here, just to allow to give chances to both sides if they wanted... It means if they wanted…No problems! They could have the border 15 meters away and it would have been only to Federation… But no! They wanted to give chances to both sides. […] And this is the result… Today here are the needles of the narco users, condoms of the fuckers… Mafia meeting, a safe place for narco dealers. […] And now you can’t find this place on any map. 4 It seems that the future of those sites is determined by many factors going beyond the simple financial and technical criteria. The social and political aspects

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__________________________________________________________________ related to this post-war context are crucial to understanding the dynamics guiding the reconversion process of certain sites. Following those observations could we introduce the idea that independent projects - or even familial ones - such as the Tunnel of Hope or the private operator quoted, would be more inclined to overpass those bureaucratic and politic barriers? Furthermore could those different projects be seen as alternative vectors of expression for silent and marginal voices? Tumarkin 5 describes The Tunnel of Hope not only as a private museum, but also as a private memorial. This conceptualization has been partly confirmed by the creator and owner of this museum and Zijad Jusufovic, who describes the creation of the Museum: The army just let him alone. And his house was damaged… what to do now? And he decided to establish a tunnel. It’s five marks a ticket you know… He sells some things … Ok! But this is private. 6 Byro Kollar, the creator and owner, confirms that his museum is totally private. He insists on his determination to avoid nationalistic influences from the different communities and even adds, referring to the opening speech of the fifteen anniversary of the construction of this museum: I don’t like everybody to talk about the tunnel. Some politicians tried to use it for their own publicity. I will not allow politicians to do the discourse; it will be one of the best students who will read it. 7 In this context, could the Museum, and different initiatives presented be seen as a challenge to the representation of the trauma by the powers in place? Following this idea it would be interesting to introduce the notions of gentrification and encirclement that Jenny Edkins assimilates to two different ways of managing a trauma: We cannot try to address the trauma directly without risking its gentrification […] Memory and forgetting are crucial, both in contesting the depoliticisation that goes under the name of politics, and in keeping open a s pace for a g enuine political challenge by encircling the trauma rather than attempting to gentrify it. 8 On another hand, the touristification of traumatized sites raises the question of their trivialization and historical detachment as stated by Christina Schwenkel on Vietnam: ‘Despite government efforts to retain its historical and commemorative

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__________________________________________________________________ significance, Vietnamese youth, in particular, have transformed the Cu Chi Tunnels into a site of entertainment that is largely detached from the war.’ 9 Through her study on the Vietnam War memorialization she assumes that the way the Cu Chi Tunnels site is experienced, especially for the Vietnamese youth, generates anti-memorial functions which suggest a detachment from the traumatic History of Vietnam. Finally, the question about the status of those sites, between museums and memorials, should be raised as Paul Williams does in his book on memorial museums. Williams demonstrates that the traditional difference between memorials and museums is often blurred, even though: A memorial is seen to be, if not apolitical, at least safe in the refuge of history. […] A historical museum, by contrast, is presumed to be concerned with interpretation, contextualization, and critique. 10 4. Conclusion: War, Trauma and Tourism In the current literature the link between war and tourism has already been illustrated by numerous authors. Derek Hall states that: ‘Sites associated with war and conflict become particularly popular’. 11 Valene Smith even introduces the idea that: ‘memorabilia of warfare and allied products constitute the largest single category of tourist attractions in the world’. 12 The touristification of sites related to war are generally problematized through the notion of dark tourism (Stone 2006, Lennon & Foley, 2000) or even thanatourism (Seaton, 1996), the same way as sites linked to natural disasters or terrorism attacks. Such research is often produced in the fields of hospitality management and marketing. Most of them are limited to quantitative analyses leading to results presented through rigid typologies disconnected from reality. Philip Stone 13 for instance intends to point out the different shades of darkness a site can take on, in a spectrum going from the lightest to the darkest. Following his idea Auschwitz would be darker than the Museum of Holocaust in Washington DC, as the latter is more disconnected from the Second World War genocide. He defines different categories on this spectrum depending on dimensions such as education, authenticity, leisure, location, chronological distance or even the degree of touristification. I would state that we need a more comprehensive approach with more qualitative and interdisciplinary methods to build a reflection which goes far beyond the tourism sector. Paul Williams remarks on the complexity of differentiating memorials and museums, illustrating, in my opinion, the ambiguities that exist in trying to situate sites like, for instance, the Tunnel of Hope in well-defined categories. Finally, some authors introduce the notion of political tourism illustrating it among others by the case of Northern Ireland (Simone-Charteris, Boyd, 2010) where some tours are organized by ex-prisoners of the two communities (republicans and loyalists) and where the ideologically oriented interpretation of the conflict is assumed and promoted. The

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__________________________________________________________________ authors are exploring the way this political form of tourism, often advertised ‘under the wider umbrella of cultural and heritage tourism’, 14 can have the potential to succeed in reducing tensions and mistrust, or on the opposite side, could strengthen existing misconceptions and stereotypes. As we can see the relation between tourism and war, and trauma in general, is multifaceted and a tourism management approach isn’t sufficient to fully understand its complexity. In this context, interdisciplinary methods seem more than indispensable to construct a productive reflection.

Notes 1

M. Tumarkin, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy, Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2005, p. 12. 2 Personal interview conducted in Sarajevo on July 2010. 3 The Historical Tour is proposed among others by the tourism office of Sarajevo and leads visitors around the main historical landmarks of the city. 4 Personal interview conducted in Sarajevo in July 2010. 5 M. Tumarkin, 2005, p. 208. 6 Personal interview, 2010. 7 Ibid. 8 J. Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 15. 9 C. Schwenkel, The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2009, p. 97. 10 P. Williams, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, Berg, Oxford / New York, 2007, p. 8. 11 D. Hall, Tourism and Welfare: Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustained Well-Being, Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2006, p. 69. 12 V. Smith, ‘War and Tourism: An American Ethnography’, Annals of Tourism Research, 2007, p. 205. 13 P. Stone, ‘A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre Related Tourists and Sites, Attraction and Exhibitions’, Tourism: An Interdisciplinary International Journal, Vol. 52, 2006, p. 151. 14 M.T. Simone-Charteris and S.W. Boyd, ‘Northern Ireland Re-Emerges from the Ashes: The Contribution of Political Tourism towards a More Visited and Peaceful Environment’, Tourism, Progress and Peace, O. Moufakkir and I. Kelly (eds), Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2010, p. 187.

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Bibliography Ashworth G., ‘In Search of Place-Identity Dividend: Using Heritage Landscapes to create Place Identity’. Sense of Place, Health and Quality of Life. Eyles J. et al. (eds), Ashgate’s Geographies of Health Series, Canada, 2007. Edkins J., Trauma and the Memory of Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Hall D., Tourism and Welfare: Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustained Well-Being. Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2006. Lennon J. and Foley M., Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster. Continuum, London / New York, 2000. Schwenkel C., The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2009. Seaton, T., ‘Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism’. International Journal of Heritage Studies. 1996, pp. 234-244. Simone-Charteris M.T. and Boyd S.W., ‘Northern Ireland Re-Emerges from the Ashes: The Contribution of Political Tourism towards a More Visited and Peaceful Environment’. Tourism, Progress and Peace. Moufakkir, O. and Kelly, I. (eds), Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2010, pp.179-198. Stone P., ‘A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre Related Tourists and Sites, Attraction and Exhibitions’. Tourism: An Interdisciplinary International Journal. Vol. 52, 2006. Tumarkin M., Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy. Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2005. Williams P., Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities. Berg, Oxford / New York, 2007. Patrick Naef is a P hD candidate and a t eaching assistant at the Environmental Sciences Institute, University of Geneva. After graduating in anthropology, he’s now realizing a thesis in cultural geography on heritage reconversion and tourism development in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina.

Persistence and Transformation of Cultural Trauma: Commemoration of Soviet Deportations in the Media of PostSoviet Latvia (1987-2010) Olga Procevska, Mārtiņš Kaprāns and Laura Uzule Abstract An essential part of the political strategy of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was the extermination of social groups that he regarded as the enemies of the people: owners of the capital and land, counterrevolutionaries, and opponents of Soviet ideology and collectivisation. Thus on June 14th 1941 and March 25th 1949 the population of Latvia diminished by 60 t housand people overnight. Soviet authorities labelled them as dangerous for socialism and deported them to various destinations in Siberia with no hope of return. Memories of them were unspeakable in the public sphere until perestroika, but since then it has become as principal a source of cultural trauma for Latvians as September 11th is for Americans and the Holocaust is for Jews. During the decline of the Soviet Union, the commemoration of Soviet crimes became an important social practice in Latvia and elsewhere in post-communist societies. A crucial role in this process was played by Latvian mass media: since perestroika the media have been forming the public discourse of the commemoration and thereby also of the trauma of the deportations. By analysing the content of the most read national and local newspapers Latvia issued in the last 23 years, this extensive study offers an overview of the creation and transformation of mediated trauma. Key Words: Trauma, representation, commemoration, deportations, Soviet, postSoviet, Latvia. ***** The tradition of public commemoration of deportations began in the period of Atmoda (a specific Latvian term for national revival, 1987-1991), when previously silenced historical episodes became a p art of everyday political communication. The media participated in this process not only as informers, but also as agitators and influencers of the public opinion. The democratisation of history and sharing information about the traumatic events became so widespread that it created a new type of public communication and brought to the public sphere new ideas and feelings, as the sociologist Talis Tisenkopfs pointed out several years after perestroika. 1 The traumatic experience of deportations represented in the media dissolved the previous conception of soviet history and became an important part of the new, post-soviet history and identity.

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__________________________________________________________________ The first occurrence of the public commemoration of deportations took place in June 14, 1987 when the civil rights movement Helsinki-86 laid flowers in the front of the Monument of Freedom in Riga and were roundly or rudely roughly condemned by the authorities and the media. 2 In 1988, the situation was completely different - the Communist Party of Latvia officially permitted the commemoration of the deportations. 3 The official legitimization, albeit completed only in 1990, enabled the press to come up with an openly supportive position towards the commemorative activities. 1. Creating Patterns of Commemoration The highest activity in terms of the total number of publications representing commemorative events was reached in 1989. 4 Until 1989 national media dominates, but later the number of publications in national media significantly decreases, while the local media continue to produce a growing or stable number of publications in following years. This asymmetry can be explained by two interrelated factors. First, the national press established and legitimated the discourse of commemoration that made its localization possible and at the same time diminished the necessity to sustain it o n the national scale. Second, in the beginning of the 1990s the economic issues downplayed the importance of history and cultural struggles in the agenda of the national media, while commemorative events remained notable for local communities and thus also for the local media. Typically, the commemoration is represented through news pieces, reportages or short, mobilizing messages listing the time and venue of the commemorative activities. During the Atmoda period, publications, both in texts and pictures, focus on several aspects: monuments, mass gatherings and also musical and sacral components of the commemoration. National newspapers tend to emphasize political actions such as demonstrations and speeches, whereas local media give more attention to the religious, emotional and aesthetic aspects, such as worship, songs, poetry and memories, accentuating the individual experiences of the deportees and the involvement of the local community. 5 However, commemorative events in both types of media during Atmoda are represented as being oriented towards immediate emotional experience rather than to the cognitivization of the past, more characteristic of the next decade. Thus emotional music, flowers, tears in the eyes of people and their feeling of respectfulness are common characteristics of the commemorative representation. Journalists also use a v ery appealing and emotional style of reporting: At noon of June 14 the stirring sounds of the church-bell introduced the event, dedicated to the victims of Stalin’s cult of personality. This bell has been silent for a long time, but our memory and our consciousness were kept silent even longer. [..]

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__________________________________________________________________ The remembrance is fragile. Fragile as a trembling light of candles in the breeze of the shore of Daugava River. 6 There is a rather high level of homogenization and politization of commemorative discourse in the period of Atmoda: the most quoted persons are public officials, with the voices of deportees heard in the press only in half as many cases (14% and 8% respectively). Thus the witnesses of the historical events are ignored by the press (especially by the national press) in favour of the actors representing the political discourse. A characteristic feature of the commemorative discourse during Atmoda is the generalization of suffering, i.e. no specific ethnic or social identities are assigned to the victims of deportations. Unlike the portrayal of the victims, the key perpetrator is more concrete: Stalin. At the beginning of Atmoda, Stalin’s crimes were framed as an anomaly, not an organic element of the Soviet system, but at the end of Atmoda blaming Stalin (or ‘the cult of personality’ as it is commonly referred to in the press) transforms into accusations of the whole soviet system: Stalin should not be the only one to blame: his party, the Communist party, is guilty for that bloodshed, for the extermination of millions of honourable people. 7 Yet, it must be noted that during Atmoda the press does not focus on finding and punishing the villains (the perpetrators are mentioned only in 20% of publications), rather it is tended at representing the collective, all-embracing empathy. During Atmoda the press published not only news and features, but also a lot of memoirs, interviews with the deportees, analytical pieces on history of that time, governmental resolutions, and lists with the names of the deportees. Other documents were published, such as prose and poetry devoted to the remembrance of the victims of deportations, which provided a contextual field wherein the commemorative events could be located and understood. 8 They also inspired people to engage in commemorative activities, as the analysis shows: 85% of the contextual publications were issued before the particular event and only 15% after. Remembering and condemning deportations became a political matter during Atmoda. Namely, talking about deportations inevitably converted into the discourse on the Soviet occupation in 1940, demands of autonomy and independence, and free speech and civil rights under the Soviet rule. At that time the media acted as mobilizing forces of commemoration: they intensively informed about upcoming local and nationwide commemorative events and contextualized these activities by printing life stories, analysis, adding personal interpretation and sentiment and also by stressing their cultural and political significance. Using particular genres, metaphors, emotional style, and popular spokespersons the press

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__________________________________________________________________ established a p attern of mediating the trauma that influenced the commemorative representation in the next 20 years. A distinctive tendency of the Atmoda period was to avoid accentuating the suffering of a single social stratum or ethnic group and to stay away from searching for villains. Instead, the media focused on shared feelings, emphasized the common rather than controversial issues, and thus created the potential for reconciliation between different groups and the healing of cultural trauma. However, in following years the disunion emerged between the representation of these events in the media of the two main ethnic communities of Latvia: Latvians and Russians. 2. The Decade of Continuity and Transformation Although since 1991 t he commemoration of deportations may have partially lost the political appeal it h ad during Atmoda, commemorative events are still a salient topic in the media agenda and more than a h alf of all commemorative publications are still to be found on the first and second pages of the newspapers. 9 The dynamics of publications representing the commemorative events is not steady, but has four visible peaks. Two of them are connected to the anniversaries of the deportations, but the other two are more politically interesting. In 1999 the commemoration of deportations is under the influence of the events of the previous year when for the first time on a significant scale the former members of the Latvian Legion of the Nazi army publicly commemorated their fallen brethren. It provoked a tide of indignation by the Russian authorities and the Russian press of Latvia; and in waiting for a possible confrontation the deportations received greater media attention in 1999. For its part, in 2006 the attention of the media was caught by an accident at the Monument of Freedom, an icon of commemorative events that is situated at the very center of Riga. That year, on March 25, the municipality of Riga had decided to start reconstruction works on the monument, so an enclosure was set up and access to the monument was limited. Since many participants were upset by this fact they expressed it during the commemorative procession to the president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Reacting to accusations addressed towards her, Vike-Freiberga gestured in a way that insulted the participants of the event. This incident became the top news story of the day. Similarly to the Atmoda period, publications of subsequent years also focus on such commemorative elements as monuments, mass gatherings, musical backdrop, etc.. The analysis suggests that only in 19% of all commemorative publications represent events that took place in the countryside, mainly at railway stations (where the trains with the deportees once started their journeys) or special memorial sites. Unlike national newspapers, the local press is dominated by the voices of deportees, poems and prose, as well as the presence of clergy and sacral components. For example:

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__________________________________________________________________ Saxophone eases off sorrows, playing ‘I sing for you, the fatherland’. [..] The anthem of Latvia sounds like a praying sung by everyone. The hearts of participants were filled with songs, which were sung by the choir Wenden after the commemorative event. People discussed the past and present events, while drinking tea. 10 The local newspapers do highlight constraints for the commemoration: they emphasize the worries of deportees that after their death the horrors of the deportations will be forgotten, because there are only a few young people present at the commemoration events, which, in their opinion, increases the probability that similar events can happen again in the future. Great is a nation that remembers its history. Therefore I beg grandparents to tell their grandchildren about their experience and to take them to memorial sites. 11 The challenge for us, who've survived, is not to complain, but to inform the nation and the world what happened here and to make sure this does not happen again. 12 The national newspapers more often than regional press tend to write about exhibitions, presentations of books or movie premieres, as well as conferences or lectures dedicated to deportations, thus emphasizing the cognitive attitude to the past. The most quoted persons in the publications of the 1990s and later are similar to the Atmoda period: the majority of them are public officials. However, the postAtmoda media quotes deportees more often, increasing the diversity of voices and the presence of primary sources (the carriers of direct experience of deportations). Neither in the publications of Atmoda, nor in the post-Atmoda period, is there a tendency to look for the perpetrators. From 374 c ommemorative publications, registered in post-Atmoda period, only 45 articles mention any perpetrator: the USSR or the Soviet Communist regime, – Stalin or stalinism, the government, the Russians and the Soviet secret police. It is important to take into account that unlike in Atmoda, the media do accentuate ethnic Latvians as the major victims of deportations. This applies typically to the Latvian language media, while the Russian media of Latvia repeatedly tend to emphasize that members of other ethnicities suffered from deportations too. The discussion about the possibility to regard deportations as genocide against Latvians is one of the most persistent themes in the press 20 years after Atmoda. These divergent approaches illuminate problems the people of Latvia face constituting political nation. While the representation of remembering deportations during Atmoda is characterized by its consensual nature, in the next two decades the conflict and

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__________________________________________________________________ confrontation is regularly present at the events and in the media. Commemoration of deportations is used to discuss the complicated Latvia-Russia relations, which often leads to nationalistic statements on the one side and feelings of resentment on the other. The Russian press of Latvia tends to identify with the position of Russia and is offended by what it regards as attempts to nationalize sufferings. Therefore Russian press is more sensitive to ideological conflicts that occur in the commemoration of deportations. The 23 year long history of commemoration of the Soviet deportations of 1941 and 1949 demonstrates several important tendencies in the process of dealing with trauma, although albeit these tendencies are controversial. First, there is a t rend towards lesser consensus and more conflict around the remembrance of deportations. Second, there is a persistent tendency towards an empathetic and not a villain-seeking representation of deportations. Third, the diversity of commemoration and its representation in the media increases over time. Considered together, these tendencies may indicate that the commemoration of deportations is still in transition: a particular tradition of representation has formed, though it is still flexible, responding to changes in the social and political context. Yet we suggest that there is still a great potential for using deportations as a symbolic resource that both helps to retreat from cultural trauma and to reconcile different mnemonic communities.

Notes 1

T. Tisenkopfs, ‘Dzīve un teksts: biogrāfiskā pieeja sociālajās zinātnēs’, Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis, Vol. 5(550), 1993, pp. 1-8. 2 ‘Svētki uz riteņiem’, Padomju Jaunatne, June 1987; see also, M. Birznieks, ‘Tas mums jāiegaumē’, Skolotāju Avīze, June 1987. 3 LATINFORM, ‘Latvijas Komunistiskās partijas Centrālajā komitejā’, Lauku Avīze, June 1988. 4 The research sample to explore the specific characteristics of media representations of the commemoration of deportations during Atmoda included 9 national newspapers (2 of them writing in Russian) and 12 local newspapers. In total, 185 publications (including pictures), directly concerning the commemorative activities (ad hoc we will be calling them commemorative publications) and 448 contextual publications were studied. In order to indicate the most important components of commemorative rituals and to observe the voices of publications and the role of deportees, we compelled the commemorative publications to content analysis. The contextual publications were analysed thematically, outlining their themes, discourses, genres and authorship. 5 See, for example, J. Vistiņa, ‘Draugi, brāļi tālumā!’, Jelgavas Ziņotājs, June 1989; see also, S. Klince, ‘Atmiņu – rītdienai’, Padomju Druva, June 1988. 6 J. Zemdegs, ‘Piemiņai dzīvot...’, Komunisma Uzvara, June 1988.

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M. Magone, ‘Mūsu piemiņas akmeņi’. Darba Karogs, June 1991. Besides 185 publications representing the commemorative activities of Atmoda, we have studied 448 publications that outline the context of commemoration, but do not report directly on the events. 9 To investigate the development of the commemorative tradition originating in Atmoda in subsequent years, we analyzed three major national Latvian-language newspapers and three Russian national newspapers. In addition, to ensure the broadest possible regional coverage, four local newspapers were included. To observe the transformations of the commemorative representation, the publications during nine years (1995, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010) were studied. 10 S. Feldmane, ‘Vēstures atbalsis šodienā’, Druva, March 2010. 11 V. Rozenberga, ‘Tautas sāpju dienas atceroties’, Druva, June 2010. 12 N. Driķe, ‘Klusuma brīdis, lūgšana un dziesmas – aizvesto piemiņai’, Kurzemes Vārds, June 2010. 8

Bibliography Alexander, J.C., Eyerman, R., Giesen, B., Smelser, N.J. and Sztompka, P., Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2004. Bell, D. (ed), Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship between Past and Present. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010. Birznieks, M., ‘Tas mums jāiegaumē’. Skolotāju Avīze. June 1987. Driķe, N., ‘Klusuma brīdis, lūgšana un dziesmas – aizvesto piemiņai’. Kurzemes Vārds. June 2010. Feldmane, S., ‘Vēstures atbalsis šodienā’. Druva. March 2010. Halbwachs, M., On Collective Memory. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London, 1992. Hunt, N.C., Memory, War and Trauma. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010. Klince, S., ‘Atmiņu – rītdienai’. Padomju Druva. June 1988. LATINFORM, ‘Latvijas Komunistiskās partijas Centrālajā komitejā’. Lauku Avīze. June 1988.

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Vistiņa, J., ‘Draugi, brāļi tālumā!’. Jelgavas Ziņotājs. June 1989. Magone, M., ‘Mūsu piemiņas akmeņi’. Darba Karogs. June 1991. Mithander, T., Sundholm, J. and Troj Holmgren, M. (eds), Collective Traumas: Memories of War and Conflict in 20th-Century Europe. Bruxelles [u.c.], P. I. E. Peter Lang, 2007. Rozenberga, V., ‘Tautas sāpju dienas atceroties’. Druva. June 2010. Sztompka, P., ‘Cultural Trauma: The Other Face of Social Change’. European Journal of Social Theory. Vol. 3(4), 2000, pp. 449-466. Tisenkopfs, T., ‘Dzīve un teksts: biogrāfiskā pieeja sociālajās zinātnēs’. Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis. Vol. 5(550), 1993, pp. 1-8. Zemdegs, J., ‘Piemiņai dzīvot...’. Komunisma Uzvara. June 1988. Olga Procevska is a P hD candidate and researcher at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Latvia. Her research interests focus on history and sociology of intellectuals and, specifically, on pos t-socialist intelligentsia, but also include Soviet popular culture, cultural memory studies, metaphors and cognition. Mārtiņš Kaprāns is a PhD candidate and researcher at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Latvia. His research interests include autobiographical communication and popular culture studies, social memory and identity. Laura Uzule is a PhD candidate and researcher at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Latvia. Her research interests are local media, self-identity of journalists, gender studies, national identity, social memory and commemoration.

Finding a Voice Sue Robinson Abstract Finding a Voice is a workshop approach that explores how adults and children may come together to think of ways to overcome traumatic situations. It uses ideas originally developed by Tom Andersen about reflecting conversations to extend dialogues and conversations in ways which permit more careful listening and enhances the opportunities for those present to find the language to vocalise underlying feelings, thoughts and ideas. Key Words: Young people, violence, trauma, dialogue, reflection, group process, listening, discourse, language. ***** 1. Introduction Finding a Voice is a workshop approach that was developed to help young people through the traumatic aftermath of a murder, and to assist them to ‘find their voices’ again. It was designed to be as participatory as possible. In Prague a Finding A Voice workshop was run as an experiential session, giving conference participants a ‘taste of the experience’. Consideration was given to whether the approach fits with classic ‘fishbowl’ discussions and how the process is helpful in traumatic situations. Some hypothesised that it creates a f ormal framework that acts to contain, or hold a discussion of an inherently emotional subject. As such, the underlying values of the model establish an inherent respect for other participants. The approach involves three ‘reflecting conversations’. A family therapist, Tom Andersen, in Norway, developed the idea of a reflecting conversation. One of the purposes of a reflecting conversation is to promote deep and careful listening, thereby encouraging greater involvement by participants. The reflecting conversation accomplishes this in several ways but one of the most important is the careful attention to the spaces in the dialogue and the non-verbal or bodily aspects of the communications. 2. Background Tom Andersen was interested in the ways words were uttered and communicated. He said: The listener (the therapist) who follows the talker (the client), not only hearing the words but seeing how the words are uttered, will notice how every word is part of the moving body. Spoken words

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__________________________________________________________________ and bodily activity come together in a u nity and cannot be separated ... The listener who sees as much as he hears will notice that various spoken words ‘touch’ the speaker differently. 1 His thinking and clinical practice were fundamental in helping to evolve a number of developments in therapeutic dialogues and the practice of reflecting teams. As a result of his work, innovative ideas emerged such as the ‘reflecting team’, ‘reflecting process’, ‘reflecting conversation and dialogue’ and ‘inner and outer talks’. A more detailed explanation of these terms can be found Andersen’s Innovations in the Reflecting Process. 2 The ideas in Innovations in the Reflecting Process are inspirational and exciting. Tom Andersen left an important legacy for work with trauma, attunement and non-verbal communication. He appeared to have a wonderful capacity to instil respect in the situations in which he worked and to facilitate innovative thinking in other practitioners. The reflecting circle can also be used in non-therapeutic environments. It is particularly effective in situations where either there are strong prevailing power relationships, where the culture is such that participants are prone to rush to judgment, or where there is a high degree of uncertainty or ambiguity. For example, it has been used in consultancy practice to help with cultural alignment in a new organisation and to ensure that people who are ‘hard to hear’ are listened to by a public organisation. Andersen’s ideas are evinced in the work of Garcia and Guevara in Argentina. They used his language and ideas in several ways in their work in responding to the traumatic legacy of the country’s military dictatorship (1976-83) and subsequent failures to address issues of human rights and social justice in its aftermath. Guevara and Garcia viewed their ‘clinical practice as political practice’ by thinking about the political context in Argentina and asking, ‘how can we contribute to the generation of further acceptance of difference and inclusion?’ 3 They explained the relationship between clinical and political practice as follows: We understand politics to mean the exercise of responsibility as participants of social acts, based on its consequences. Deeming language as meaning-making and constituting our world views as generating our reality, and conceiving words as formative, increases our responsibility as we use it. Changing language is therefore changing the world. The language-thought-world relationship is therefore a dialectical one. 4 The references to the work of Shotter and Freire, which are in the original passage, indicate an important aspect of the approach. It enables the participants

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__________________________________________________________________ through the use of language in a structured environment to have the possibility of reframing the social construction of their world. Curry has summarised: We make sense of the world through language. The ‘communicated world’ connects the world we observe with the world we experience, and bridges our interior and exterior worlds. Our construction of knowledge about the world is a social process which goes on within groups, through the agency of language. 5 Some of these ideas were applied in thinking how to respond to the violent death of a young person in London. Help was requested after a 15-year old boy was stabbed to death in March 2010, during rush hour at a mainline London station. Knife crime among teenagers is a particular problem in London, with more than a dozen deaths in the capital in 2010, although rates nationally for the UK are among the lowest in Europe. In response to the killing, Sue Robinson and Helen Mahaffey ran a series of Finding a Voice events. 3. The Finding a Voice Events in London The first Finding a Voice event, held at a school, consisted of several reflecting conversations between adults and young people. Afterwards a s econd event was held in the youth offending service, and there were requests for further events. Sue Robinson and Helen Mahaffey sought both to recognise the distress caused by the violence, and to expand the opportunities for young people to find their voices in ways that helped them to overcome such traumas. They also hoped to furnish the young people with better skills to develop dialogues and narratives about their feelings. In the work by Guevara and Garcia, a letter was sent to professionals, parents and young adults, inviting them to participate in a meeting that would use the reflecting circles as the basis for dialogue. In their meeting, the three ‘reflecting conversations’ were held for 10 to 15 minutes each and participants were grouped into two circles. The inner circle included the young people and they spoke first. While they did this, the adults present sat outside in a second circle and were permitted only to listen, not to speak or respond. Then the adults had their turn to speak in a second conversation, which reflected on the dialogue of the young people in the initial conversation. The third and final conversation involved the children, in turn, reflecting on what the adults had said, again without interruption by the adults. In London, a broadly similar workshop method was used, although for cultural and organisational reasons we modified the preparatory work. We found that in practice we needed to adapt our facilitation approach during the actual workshops. The preparatory work for the London events was crucial and warrants a substantial

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__________________________________________________________________ paper in itself that is in progress. But one of the unintended beneficial outcomes at the London events was that people were involved as participants in a ‘facilitated conversation’ rather than as patients giving consent to treatment. In Argentina, the participants moved from the outer to inner circle to do this. In the London Finding a Voice events, participants chose to stay in their original positions without changing from inner to outer circle. This did not, however, disrupt the underlying procedural and structural rules of the event (that young people initially spoke while adults listened, and so on). Understanding the reasons behind the different elements of the event described in Argentina by Guevara and Garcia and the Finding a Voice events in London seemed a helpful way to develop our ideas (which we are now doing in a variety of ways) and further work is being undertaken by Helen Mahaffey with some of the children and families. The workshop session at the Trauma: Theory and Practice conference provided a v aluable opportunity to explore these ideas with a crossdisciplinary group of interested practitioners and participants. 4. The Reflecting Conversation in Prague At the event in Prague, Sue Robinson and Andrew Curry sought to give participants an experience of the reflecting conversation, rather than simply present the work. After a short introduction, the participants were invited to arrange themselves in the two (inner and outer) circles. The question we asked the group to start the conversation was as follows: Reflecting on the presentations we have just heard [by Catherine Barrette and Clara Mucci], and other material presented at the conference, what questions could we ask ourselves about the links between our private and public experiences of trauma? As with the sessions in the Finding A Voice events in London, we had the inner circle start, and the outer circle listen; in the second cycle of conversation, the outer circle spoke, and the inner circle listened; and finally the inner circle had power of voice for a third cycle. (There are other ways to manage the circles). 6 Despite the relatively tight time constraints, the conversation worked at both process and content levels, to judge both from the questions that followed both within the session and informally afterwards. In terms of the content, a number of themes emerged:

• The relationship between personal and public trauma.

Perhaps paradoxically, as one participant observed, ‘all trauma is personal’, but it is never just a private trauma; trauma is both private and public.

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• It takes time to transfer the experience of the trauma into the

•

•

public sphere. The idea of ‘generational time’, which surfaced in the conversation, was one of the running themes of the conference as a whole. Our discussion built on Clara Mucci’s chapter to suggest that this involves the ‘reconstruction of truth’ as part of the process of rebuilding social bonds. One immediate response to trauma is hyper-vigilance; it takes time to reframe this as an experience. One speaker linked it to other material presented at the conference about ‘spiritual’ as distinct from religious experience and the possible role of the ‘collective unconscious’ in relation to this. The role of the artist in ‘meaning making’, a theme which emerged in the conversation as a r esponse to Catherine Barrette’s challenging images. Great art, it was suggested, comes from trauma, and possibly, that great artists are traumatised. But artists, it was argued, had a responsibility to look and listen, and a responsibility to produce.

Reflecting on this conversation after the conference, it was evident that many of the points that emerged during the session would not have been raised in a conventional question and answer format. For example, consideration was given to the ways trauma should be exposed in relation to Catherine’s chapter. Some participants also said that they had experienced Andersen’s ‘unity’ of ‘spoken words and bodily activity’, which he regarded as an integral part of the experience of the reflecting conversation. One example was an intense sense expressed by someone in the inner circle - of her words being heard by those around her as she spoke. In the short time available to us, several patterns also seen in longer conversations were identifiable: a willingness to tolerate periods of silence; attempts to ‘break the circle’ as a participant tried to get a member of the other circle to respond directly to a comment; the liberation of knowing that it is not necessary to speak; and the sense that this freedom, in turn, created an intensity of experience while in the listening circle. In the discussion following the reflecting conversation, questions were raised about the rationale for the model. The reflecting conversation is a special form of dialogue, and as Daniel Yankelovich notes: ‘Practitioners agree that in dialogue all participants must be treated as equals’. 7 The reflecting conversation deliberately privileges the power of speech by enforcing silence upon the listeners, and by rotating this privilege. In terms of recovering from trauma, of finding truth, of building social bonds, of re-framing the power relationships that lay behind the events of the trauma, these are essential tasks.

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Notes 1

T. Andersen, ‘Language is not Innocent’, The Handbook of Relational Diagnosis, F. Kaslow (ed), Wiley, New York/Oxford, 1996, pp. 119-125. 2 A. Anderson and P. Jensen (eds), Innovations in the Reflecting Process, Karnac, London, 2007. 3 A.G. Garcia and L. Guevara, ‘Voicing Voices’, Innovations in the Reflecting Process, A. Anderson and P. Jensen (eds), Karnac, London, 2007, pp. 58-74. 4 Ibid. 5 A. Curry, ‘Acting on the Future’, Scenarios for Success. B. Sharpe and K. van der Heijden (eds), Wiley, Chichester, 2007. 6 In Tom Andersen’s original formulation and in the Garcia and Guevara workshops, participants moved physically from the outer to the inner circles when it was their turn to speak. This had been the original intention in the Finding A Voice events in London, but the young people in the inner circle declined to move. A further model, sometimes used by Co-intelligence practitioners http://www.cointelligence.org/y2k_fishbowl.html leaves one or more chairs empty in the inner circle, and allows participants to move to these when they wish to speak in the conversation. In this model, similarly, people in the inner circle who feel they have contributed sufficiently to the conversation may move when they so choose to the outer circle to listen. 7 D. Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue, Nicholas Brealey, London, 2001.

Bibliography Andersen, T., ‘Language is not Innocent’. The Handbook of Relational Diagnosis. Kaslow, F. (ed), Wiley, New York/Oxford, 1996. Anderson, A. and Jensen, P. (eds) Innovations in the Reflecting Process. Karnac. London, 2007. Curry, A., ‘Acting on the Future’. Scenarios for Success. Sharpe, B. and van der Heijden, K. (eds), Wiley, Chichester, 2007. Freire, P., Pedagogia da automnia, Siglo vientunio editores, Buenos Aires, 1997. Cited in Garcia and Guevara, 2007. [Translated into English as Freire, The Pedagogy of Freedom] Garcia, A. G. and Guevara, L., ‘Voicing Voices’. Innovations in the Reflecting Process. Anderson, A. and Jensen, P. (eds), Karnac, London, 2007.

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__________________________________________________________________ Shotter, J., Realidades Conversasionales: La Construcción de la vida a t ravés del lenguaje. Amorrortu, Buenos Aires, 2001. Cited in Garcia and Guevara, 2007. [English original, Conversational Realities: Constructing Life through Language.] Yankelovich, D., The Magic of Dialogue. Nicholas Brealey, London, 2001. Sue Robinson is employed by West London Mental Health Trust as a f amily therapist working with children in schools and developing initiatives to explore issues such as recovery from trauma, bereavement and anti-bullying. She also works as a p rivate mediator, a p sychoanalytic psychotherapist and EMDR therapist. Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge the contribution of the London Finding a Voice events participants. Specific acknowledgement is given to Helen Mahaffey for her work in co-designing and co-facilitating the Finding a Voice events in London. Thanks are also due to Andrew Curry, who contributed extensive additional material to this chapter and co-facilitated the workshop in Prague; and to Peter Bray, whose flexible chairing of the workshop session in Prague made the conversation possible.

Modern Turkey, a Traumatized Society: The Repressed Experience of Torture and Killing after the Putsch in 1980 Georg Friedrich Simet Abstract After the military seized power in Turkey on 12 S eptember 1980, about 600,000 people were arrested; 150 died under torture, 50 were executed. Recently, constitutional changes were approved in order to reshape the judiciary and curb military powers. Among the 26 amendments was a measure annulling an article blocking legal action against the leaders of the coup. This chapter will reflect on three trauma cases. Firstly, the poet Enver Karagöz will be introduced. He represents a politically less engaged intellectual who was arrested, tortured and exiled. Secondly, Doğan Akhanlı stands for an intellectual who addresses unwelcomed truths (e.g. the Armenian genocide). He was arrested for membership in an illegal leftist political group. Recently, on 10 August 2010, he was again taken into custody for a murder committed 21 years ago. Lastly, this chapter will focus on Yılmaz Güney, a Kurdish film director, scenarist, novelist and actor of Kurdish descent. He escaped from prison in 1981 and took the negatives of his film Yol (Road) with him. The film was banned until 1999, and is likely the first document that looked at the society of the early 80’s. Key Words: Enver Karagöz, Doğan Akhanlı, Yılmaz Güney, Yol, coup d'état. ***** 1. Militarism and Nation Building in Modern Turkey It is important to note that the Republic of Turkey emerged from war. According to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 16 M ay 1916, the governments of Britain and France intended to disintegrate the country by dividing the Ottoman Empire between several states. Subsequently, the Greek as well saw their chance to realise their μεγάλη ιδέα (‘great idea’) of taking over the government of Turkey. In order to defeat this purpose, General Mustafa Kemal organised national resistance and defeated the invading troops. Remembering its War for Independence, since 1923 the whole country celebrates its Victory Day (Zafer Bayramı) on 30 August. The army sees itself and is seen by most Turks as the guarantor of both independence and unity. The parliamentary system was introduced by the military. Whenever its elite saw the state in danger later on, it reserved the right to intervene and to govern the country temporarily. Up to now this has happened three times, most recently in 1980, when again, ‘the polity dissolved, the public administration began to collapse and the terrorist militancy on the left and the right escalated.’ 1

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__________________________________________________________________ The intention to re-establish internal security was executed radically and with brute force. From the perspective of the generals, everyone who seemed more ‘right’ or, in particular, more ‘left’ than normal was suspected and pursued. 2 According to official figures, ‘230,000 people were prosecuted in military courts.’ 3 Most of the imprisoned were tortured; 299 of them died. Violence was countered with violence; but the violence of the executive authorities was, and is, not punished. All constitutions of Turkey were and are still influenced by its military (regimes). In particular the fourth constitution ratified on 7 November 1982 is seen by Turkish intellectuals as ‘a product of the 12 September (1980) military coup’. 4 It guaranteed impunity for the putschists (darbeciler). Only on the 30th anniversary of the last coup d'état, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) gave the people the opportunity to put an end to impunity. 5 The voters approved a reform package including the repeal of the Provisional Article 15, ‘barring prosecution of members of the National Security Council and technocrats who had legislative and executive power’ following the coup. 6 One day later, human rights groups leapt into action, filing petitions that called for former President Ahmet Kenan Evren and other coup leaders to be tried. 2. Enver Karagöz – Extermination of ‘the Rose of Resistance’ 7 The Turkish-German Human Rights Association (TÜDAY), Köln - founded by Enver and Işılay Karagöz - also started a petition to try the putschists. Enver Karagöz was born on 2 M ay 1948 i n Artvin, the uttermost northeast province of Turkey. He graduated from the University of Erzurum. At this time he tended to the leftist movement; he read often and recited poems for the masses during protest meetings. On 30 April 1970, Karagöz was assigned to the Senior High School of Artvin to teach Turkish literature. He joined the Turkish Teachers’ Union and took part in all of their activities. The principal of the school was not very pleased that he had to work with this young and progressive teacher. So, during the turbulent years around the 2nd coup, the principal reported to the Ministry of Education of Karagöz’ misdemeanours which included the reciting of Nazım Hikmet, a world renowned poet who was disliked in Turkey because of his communist views and who had been stripped of his nationality in 1959. In reaction to these misdemeanours, the Ministry dismissed Karagöz. He served in the Turkish Armed Forces for his compulsory period of 18 months. Afterwards, he was lucky enough to return to his beloved profession with the assistance of his previous inspector of education who happened to work at the ministry. His future wife, Işılay Kaya, was at this time a student at his school. Once she requested to visit his lesson. She was amazed by his method of teaching – antiauthoritarian and humanitarian. She fell in love with him. On 5 November 1977 they got married.

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__________________________________________________________________ The military intervention on 12 September 1980 interrupted the private happiness. In order to identify all supporters of left parties and movements, Karagöz - together with almost all colleagues, students and intellectuals of Artvin who were suspected of being progressive (teenagers and retired people included) was placed in the Teachers’ Education Institute which was transformed into a torture and interrogation camp. They all had to undergo systematic and ruthless torture from beatings to electroshocks. His wife remembers that the flesh of her husband’s feet was torn to bone and his body was burnt at the places where the electrodes were applied. His wife was tortured in the cell next to him so that he could hear her cries. She was released after more than a month, but her husband’s times of pain continued. One day his torturers forced his jaws open and poured boiling water through his mouth. They told him ‘from now on you will not be able to talk anymore; [...] we do not give you more than six months to live’. 8 Karagöz’ vocal cords were so terribly burnt that he instantly lost his voice. His situation deteriorated every day and he was transferred to the specialized army hospital in Ankara to cure the resultant throat cancer. One of his older colleagues, Kazım Köroğlu, reports why Karagöz’s nickname ‘The Rose of Resistance’ (Direnç Gülü) is so well befitting for his character: he withstood the torture. In his file there were only details of his identity; he hadn’t revealed any information at all. 9 In 1984 Karagöz was released from confinement without any punishment, but the same day the newspaper Hürriyet commentated: ‘The principal defendant of Artvin’s Revolutionary Way is released’. 10 Karagöz decided to leave the country. On 9 March 1984 he and his wife took different planes to Germany. He asked for political asylum; his request was granted. Till his death, he lived in Köln and continued to be active for the just cause of human rights in Turkey. After being granted a German passport he visited Turkey in 2004. At the Atatürk Airport in Istanbul during passport control the policemen on duty told him to follow him to the Police Department, the Bureau of Terrorist Activities. Approximately an hour later an officer came into the room and asked Karagöz whether he recognized him. Yes, he did. It was one of his torturers. Karagöz died of throat cancer on 27 March 2007 in a hospital room. He left behind a loving wife and two children as well as a collection of poems. Though Hürriyet addressed Karagöz in 1984 as one of the main bad revolutionists, on 19 June 2008 i t published an article nicely formulated: ‘Remembering the country’s ‘Rose of Resistance’ that lost its voice’. 11 3. Doğan Akhanlı – The Ongoing Persecution 12 The case of Doğan Akhanlı that we will look at now shows that ‘the judiciary as the wing of the military armed with paragraphs is unpredictable and fights full of hatred against dissenters’. 13

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__________________________________________________________________ Akhanlı and Karagöz were born near the same town, Şavşat, in the Artvin province, but Akhanlı, born on 18 March 1957, is about nine years younger. In contrast to Karagöz he left the remote place and moved to Istanbul at the age of twelve. Six years later, he was imprisoned for the first time. His crime was that he bought the ‘left-wing’ newspaper Halkın Sesi (Voice of the People) - that today, supports racist positions - at a kiosk. He was ‘questioned’ for eleven days, arrested and held in custody for five months. Although he was acquitted in the process that followed, his bad experience had a lasting influence on him: ‘Since then my confidence in the Turkish state was completely undermined.’ 14 His stay in prison made him a communist. During the 1980 coup d’etat Akhanlı was enrolled at the Karadeniz Technical University. At this time he became ‘a member of the Albania orientated TDKP’ (Türkiye Devrimci Komünist Partisi). 15 As he knew that he was still in danger of being arrested, he went underground. Nevertheless, in 1985 he was detected and detained. He and his wife were tortured in the presence of their child. His wife and son were released after one year but he had to stay on for two more. The experience left all of them ‘feeling as small as breadcrumbs’ 16 (unufak olmuştuk). 17 In September 1987, when his prison stay was temporarily suspended, he used the chance to go underground again. The next events will be summarized very briefly: In 1991, he [his wife and son] fled to Germany, where he was granted political refugee status. In 1998, Turkey stripped him of his Turkish citizenship. He became a G erman citizen in 2001. Since the mid-1990s, he has been living in Cologne. 18 The very well documented present phase of Akhanlı’s life started with his travel to Turkey on 10 A ugust 2010. Although he knew that it would not be harmless, his wish to see his 87-year-old sick father once again before his death overrode all concerns. At the Sabiha Gökçen airport of Istanbul Akhanlı he was detained and taken to the same cellblock, called Siberia, in the Metris Prison where he had been held in detention 24 years before. Based on this event Akhanlı wrote a short story called Siberia. Akhanlı was and still is blamed for i) a robbery attack against an exchange office in the Eminönü district of Istanbul on 20 October 1989, ii) the killing of the owner İbrahim Yaşar Tutum during the escape, and iii) being the leader of the TKP-YKB-HKB (Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Partisi-Yeniden Kuruluş Birliği- Halk Kurtuluş Güçleri) terrorist gang 19 which raided - as it is claimed - in order to raise funds for sustaining terroristic acts in future, whereas Akhanlı doesn’t know of and disbelieves in the existence of such an organization. 20 Although it turned out after a f ew days that the testimonies of the witnesses were obtained through the use of force and torture and renounced later on, the accusations against Akhanlı were not withdrawn. The news of his father’s death

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__________________________________________________________________ reached him in prison. After nearly four months in jail and after the first hearing on 8 December 2010, he was released. Since 6 January 2011 Akhanlı is back in his exile – defined by Akhanlı as a place free of torture. 21 Although the next hearing is scheduled for 9 March 2011, it is not clear yet if Turkey would be interested in the follow-up, as it is embarrassing for Turkey that they allowed Akhanlı’s entry. 22 4. Yılmaz Güney and his film Yol – A Way Out? Last, but not least, we will focus on the impact of the coup on Turkey’s largest ethnic minority, the Kurds. This minority still suffers the most, as all Kurds were and are seen in principle as separatists. We will look at Yılmaz Güney and his film Yol (The Way). Although all his films reflect on social conflicts in Turkey - mainly from the perspective of the Kurds, Yol is unique. As Karzan Kardozi rightly puts it: Yol is the gem of the Kurdish cinema, it is perhaps the best Kurdish film […] and still is the most honored of all the Kurdish films, winning Best Picture’ Palm’Dor and International Critics’ Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1982. 23 Yılmaz Pütün alias Yılmaz Güney is of Kurdish descent. He was born as a son of a farmhand in Yenice, a village close to Adana, on 1 April 1937. At the age of 14 he moved to Adana, as he did not wish to live in dependence on the large landowners like his parents. In 1953 he discovered his passion for movies. Even a few years earlier he started to write short stories. His literary talent and personality impressed Atıf Yılmaz, one of the most renowned Turkish film directors and Yaşar Kemal, one of the most important Kurdish-Turkish novelists. Both invited Güney to co-write their screenplay. In addition, in 1958, Güney was asked to play the main part in The Children of this Country (Bu Vatanın Çocukları). Yet his just started acting career was interrupted quite soon. In 1961, he was imprisoned for 18 months for having disseminated communistic propaganda. Nevertheless, even this event could not hinder his career. Güney became ‘The Ugly King’ (Çirkin Kral) of Turkish Cinema due to his ‘rude and upright tough-guy image’ 24 and the fact that he mostly played underprivileged social crooks. His popularity reached its climax in 1965, when he took part in no less than twenty-two films. Finally, in 1968, Güney became a filmmaker and produced his first film, Seyyit Han. Four years later Güney was arrested again, as he harbored anarchist students. Due to the proclamation of a general amnesty in 1974, Güney was released, but that same year he was re-arrested. He was accused for shooting Sefa Mutlu, the public prosecutor of the Yumurtalık district in the Adana Province on 13 September that year. Güney was found guilty and given a p rison sentence of 19 years. Although there is much evidence that he shot Mutlu, even today it is not absolutely clear-cut,

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__________________________________________________________________ especially as respectively some of his colleagues and friends claimed that they did it. 25 In October 1981, Güney used a prison holiday to escape. He fled to Europe - as did some 29,500 people. 26 Prior to his flight to France he finalized the screenplay of Yol and asked Şerif Gören to direct the film. In anticipation of his own escape, Yol tells the way of five Kurdish prisoners who took their long awaited leave from prison, but, unlike Güney, they do not leave the country. Most of the stories told in the film are ‘truthfully recounted’. 27 As the prison can be seen as a m etaphor to describe Turkey itself, the film ‘provides an evocative glimpse of what life was like for the ordinary people during this period’. 28 Violence dominates their lives. The only way out is empathy and compassion, but even that does not serve as an option in normality. In the film these attitudes are only introduced shortly before death is inevitable. Having realized some more important films in exile, Güney died of gastric cancer at the age of just 47, in Paris on 9 September 1984. Güney and his films are still famous in Turkey, as he further developed the new, socially critical type of film. After Güney other filmmakers also tried and sentenced the last military coup. In particular the film Where the Rose Withers (Gülün Bittiği Yer), by İsmail Güneş narrates very drastically ‘how violence continued in Turkey.’ 29 5. Conclusion It is important to remember that the Turkish republic was built by the military in a W ar of Independence based on heroic principles and having caused heavy losses. The importance of the military as the guarantee of the state is still visible even in the expression of non-military associations. 30 This view is the main reason that state violence was and still is tolerated. The clash within Turkish society can be described as ‘a collision between those who are state-oriented and those who are civil-society oriented’. 31 The development of a civil society in Turkey depends not least on the extent to which it succeeds to name and to overcome the culture of violence in daily life - by individuals and movements like The Young Civilians (Genç Siviller), people that ‘have no connection to violence at all’, ‘being ‘no one’s man’’ and ‘non-uniformed’. 32

Notes 1

U. Steinbach, Die Türkei im 20. Jahrhundert, Schwieriger Partner Europas, Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, 1996, p. 197 2 Experts like Udo Steinbach believe that people from the left and the right wing were pursued equally (Ibid., p. 198), but other experts like Başak Çalı argue: ‘The 1980 coup involved an unprecedented degree of state violence, especially toward the political activity of all left-wing groups’. (B. Çalı, ‘Human Rights Discourse

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__________________________________________________________________ and Domestic Human Rights NGOs’, Human Rights in Turkey, Z.F.K. Arat (ed), University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2007, p. 221) 3 Associated Press, ‘Turkish Exhibit Displays Coup-era Torture Instruments ahead of Constitutional Referendum’, Fox News, 7 September 2010, Viewed on 10 January 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/07/turkish-exhibit-displays -coup-era-torture-instruments-ahead-constitutional. A very detailed list titled ‘Results of the Putsch’ (Dabenin Sonuçları) was published by NTV-MSNBC, ‘12 Eylül’ün bilançosu’, ntvmsnbc, 12 S eptember 2007, Viewed on 9 J anuary 2011, http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/419690.asp. 4 A. Ağaoğlu et al., ‘Citizens Declaration’, European Stability Initiative, 27 April 2007, Viewed on 13 January 2011, http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/turkey_citizens_ declaration_pre_July2007_elections.pdf. 5 On their homepage, the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi tries to rename its official title. Instead of using the acronym AKP it writes AK P, Ak Parti (White Party) in order to show that it has a clean slate. 6 A.J. Yackley, A. Sarioglu and K. Liffey, ‘Factbox: Turkey’s Constitutional Amendments’, Reuters, 12 S eptember 2010, Viewed on 06 January 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68B28B20100912?pageNumber=3. 7 The text about Karagöz is discussed with Karagöz’ wife Işılay and based on a draft provided by Yavuz Kürkçü who gives colorful presentations of Karagöz’ life and his poems. (D. Haber Ajansı, ‘Şair Enver Karagöz Şiirleriyle anıldı’, haberler.com, Viewed on 31 January 2011, http://www.haberler.com/sair-enverkaragoz-siirleriyle-anildi-haberi. 8 Ibid., p. 46. 9 K. Köroğlu, ‘Öğretmenin Ardından’, Direnç Gülü…, A. Öztürk, (ed), op. cit., p. 354. 10 I. Karagöz, op. cit., p. 53. 11 Hürriyet, ‘Sesini kaybeden Ülkenin ’Direnç Gülü’ anıldı’, Hürriyet, 19 June 2008, Viewed on 16 January 2011, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ankara/ 9226935.asp. 12 This part of the chapter is written in discussion with Doğan Akhanlı. 13 A. Kieser, ‘Doğan Akhanlı ist frei’, Stadtrevue, Das Kölnmagazin, January 2011, p. 19. 14 Ibid. 15 The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), ‘Writer Dogan Akhanli Jailed in Turkey’, Türkeiforum, Viewed on 20 J anuary 2011, http://www.tuerkeiforum. net/enw/index.php/Writer_Dogan_Akhanli_jailed_in_Turkey. 16 Ibid.; Quotation from ‘Die Fremde und eine Reise im Herbst’, op. cit. 17 D. Akhanlı, ‘Gurbet ve Sonbahar Yolculuğu’, March 2008, gerechtigkeit für doğan akhanlı, Viewed on 23 J anuary 2011, http://gerechtigkeit-fuer-dogan-

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__________________________________________________________________ akhanli.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/GurbetveSonbaharYolculugu_Dogan Akhanli.pdf, p. 4. 18 Gerechtigkeit für Doğan Akhanlı, ‘Biography’, gerechtigkeit für doğan akhanlı, Viewed on 20 January 2011, http://gerechtigkeit-fuer-dogan-akhanli.de/blog/ ?page _id=24. 19 S Günday, ‘21 Yıl sonra yakalanan Yazar Akhanlı'nın Müebbet Hapsi istendi’, Milliyet, 7 September 2010, Viewed on 22 January 2011, http://www.milliyet.com. tr/21-yil-sonra-yakalanan-yazar-akhanli-nin-muebbet-hapsi-istendi/turkiye/sondak ika/07.09.2010/1286354/default.htm. 20 All parts of the article related to Akhanlı were discussed with him on 24 January 2011. We found out that not all information provided on the internet is true and corrected this data discreetly. 21 M. Oehlen, ‘Kein Visum für die Haft im Gefängnis’, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 6 January 2011, Viewed on 23 January 2011, http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/ 1294060147674.shtml. 22 As Akhanlı was and still is not allowed to enter the country, it seems that the proceedings are stayed. 23 K. Kardozi, ‘YOL: The Road of Yilmaz Guney’, The Moving Silent, 15 December 2010, Viewed on 21 J anuary 2011, http://themovingsilent.word press.com/2010/12/15/kurdish-cinema-yol-yilmaz-guney-1982. 24 A. Suner, New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and Memory, I. B. Tauris, New York, 2010, p. 5. 25 E. Kazan, ‘Besuch bei Yılmaz Güney oder die Vision eines türkischen Gefängnisses’, J. Heijs (ed), op. cit., p. 56. 26 E. Yavuz, ‘[Nation set to confront coup legacy] Turkey to decide today on trying Coup Generals’, Today’s Zaman, 12 September 2010, Viewed on 30 January 2011, http://www.todayszaman.com/news-221402-nation-set-to-confront-coup-legacyturkey-to-decide-today-on-trying-coup-generals.html. 27 M. Ciment, ‘Eine Unterhaltung mit Yılmaz Güney’, J. Heijs (ed), op. cit., p. 36. 28 A. Kenny, ‘Coming to Terms with Turkey through Films: ‘Yol’ - by Yılmaz Güney’, Today’s Zaman, 20 September 2010, Viewed on 18 January 2011, http://www.todayszaman.com/news-222104-coming-to-terms-with-turkey-throughfilms-yol-by-yilmaz-guney.html. 29 J. Leicht, ‘Zeichen der Hoffnung - und viele Fragen, Teil 1’, World Socialist Web Site, 11 M ay 2000, Viewed on 30 J anuary 2011, http://www.wsws.org/de/ 2000/mai2000/turf-m11.shtml. 30 Just one example: A poster of the Aydın Chess District Representative in 2009 shows Atatürk in front of marching soldiers saying ‘The Turkish nation loves its armed forces; and regards it as the preserver of its ideals.’ (Aydın Satranç İl Temsilciliği, ‘30 Ağustos Zafer Bayrami Turnuvasi’, Aydın Satranç İl Temsilciliği,

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__________________________________________________________________ 30 August 2009, Viewed on 26 January 2010, http://www.aydinsatranciltem silciligi.com. 31 E. Shafak, ‘There is no Clash of Civilizations’, Qantara.de, 2005, Viewed on 26 January 2010, http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_i. html. 32 G. Siviller, ‘Who are Young Civilians?’, Genç Siviller, 6 April 2008, Viewed on 30 January 2011, http://www.gencsiviller.net/haber.php?haber_id=40.

Bibliography Ağaoğlu, A., ‘Citizens Declaration’. European Stability Initiative. 27 April 2007, Viewed on 13 J anuary 2011, http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/turkey_citizens_declara tion_pre_July2007_elections.pdf. Akhanlı, D., ‘Die Fremde und eine Reise im Herbst’. haGalil.com, March 2008, Viewed on 19 January 2011, http://www.hagalil.com/archiv/2010/09/20/akhanli-4. –––, ‘Gurbet ve Sonbahar Yolculuğu’. gerechtigkeit für doğan akhanlı. Viewed on 23 January 2011, http://gerechtigkeit-fuer-dogan-akhanli.de/blog/wp-content/up loads/2010/11/GurbetveSonbaharYolculugu_DoganAkhanli.pdf. Associated Press, ‘Turkish Exhibit Displays Coup-era Torture Instruments ahead of Constitutional Referendum’. Fox News. 7 September 2010, Viewed on 10 January 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/07/turkish-exhibit-displa ys-coup-era-torture-instruments-ahead-constitutional. Çalı, B., ‘Human Rights Discourse and Domestic Human Rights NGOs’. Human Rights in Turkey. Arat, Z.F.K. (ed), University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2007. Gannot, S., ‘Ein Dutzend Romane’. Freitag. 17 August 2007, Viewed on 11 January 2011, http://www.freitag.de/2007/33/07331401.php. Günday, S., ‘21 Yıl sonra yakalanan Yazar Akhanlı'nın Müebbet Hapsi istendi’. Milliyet. 7 September 2010, Viewed on 22 January 2011, http://www.milliyet.com. tr/21-yil-sonra-yakalanan-yazar-akhanli-nin-muebbet-hapsi-istendi/turkiye/sondak ika/07.09.2010/1286354/default.htm. Heijs, J., Yılmaz Güney: Sein Leben – Seine Filme. Buntbuch-Verlag, Hamburg, 1983.

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__________________________________________________________________ The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), ‘Writer Dogan Akhanli Jailed in Turkey’. Demokratisches Türkeiforum. Viewed on 20 January 2011, http://www.tuerkeiforum.net/enw/index.php/Writer_Dogan_Akhanli_jailed_in_Tur key. Hürriyet, ‘Sesini kaybeden Ülkenin ’Direnç Gülü’ anıldı’. Hürriyet. 19 June 2008, Viewed on 16 January 2011, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ankara/9226935_p.asp. Karagöz, I., ‘Eşi Karagöz’ün Kalbinden’. Direnç Gülü, Enver Karagöz’ün Anısına. Penta Yayıncılık, Ankara, 2008. Kenny, A., ‘Coming to Terms with Turkey through Films: ‘Yol’ - by Yılmaz Güney’. Today’s Zaman. 20 September 2010, Viewed on 18 January 2011, http://www.todayszaman.com/news-222104-coming-to-terms-with-turkey-throughfilms-yol-by-yilmaz-guney.html. Kieser, A., ’Doğan Akhanlı ist frei’. Stadtrevue. Das Kölnmagazin. January 2011. NTV-MSNBC, ‘12 Eylül’ün Bilançosu’. Ntvmsnbc. 12 September 2007, Viewed on 9 January 2011, http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/419690.asp. Oehlen, M., ‘Kein Visum für die Haft im Gefängnis’. ksta.de (Kölner StadtAnzeiger). 6 January 2011, Viewed on 23 January 2011, http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1294060147674.shtml. Öztürk, A. (ed), Direnç Gülü, Enver Karagöz’ün Anısına. Penta Yayıncılık, Ankara, 2008. Recherche International, ‘Biograhie | Biografi | Biograhy’. Justice for doğan akhanlı. Viewed on 9 J anuary 2011, http://gerechtigkeit-fuer-dogan-akhanli.de/ blog/?page_id=24. Shafak, E., ‘There is no Clash of Civilizations’. Qantara.de. 2005, Viewed on 28 January 2011, http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/76/_nr-459/i.html. Steinbach, U., Die Türkei im 20. Jahrhundert, Schwieriger Partner Europas. Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, 1996. Strittmatter, K., ‘Without Mercy: The Case of Dogan Akhanli’. Qantara.de. 10 December 2010, Viewed on 20 J anuary 2011, http://www.qantara.de/webcom/ show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1428/i.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ Suner, A., New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and Memory. I. B. Tauris, New York, 2010. Yackley, A.J., Sarioglu, A. and Liffey, K., ‘Factbox: Turkey’s Constitutional Amendments’. Reuters. 12 September 2010, Viewed on 06 January 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68B28B20100912?pageNumber=3. Yavuz, E., ‘[Nation Set to Confront Coup Legacy] Turkey to Decide Today on Trying Coup Generals’. Today’s Zaman. 12 September 2010, Viewed on 30 January 2011, http://www.todayszaman.com/news-221402-nation-set-to-confrontcoup-legacy-turkey-to-decide-today-on-trying-coup-generals.html. Georg Friedrich Simet is co-founder and Vice President of the Neuss University for International Business, Germany, where he teaches Theory and Propaedeutics of Science. While also interested in Practical Philosophy, he is involved in the Society of Intercultural Philosophy. His main research area in this respect is the development of the EU with a particular focus on Turkey.

The Effect of a Guided Narrative Technique among Children Traumatised by the Earthquake Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox Abstract This study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce traumarelated symptoms using a guided narrative technique (GNT) in a sample of Chinese children traumatised by the Sichuan earthquake. Participants were eighty-two Chinese fourth grade children. Two classes were randomly assigned to the GNT group, which entailed specific verbal guidelines regarding what to write, and one class was assigned to the control group which applied a mixed expressive writing and painting (MEWP), without verbal guidelines. Participants were assessed one day before and one day after the intervention. Analyses revealed overall intervention effects on intrusion, arousal, anxiety, and panic disorder symptoms. Intervention by group effect was found for symptoms of avoidance and positive changes. Thus, both GNT and MEWP were effective in symptom reduction. GNT improved positive growth more than MEWP, and did not increase avoidance. The results are discussed in terms of the potential benefits of both methods. Key Words: Children, guided narrative, emotional disclosure, expressive writing, PTSD, earthquake trauma. ***** 1. Introduction On 12 May 2008 an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale hit China, causing extensive damage in Sichuan province. The earthquake destroyed c. 6.5 million homes and affected c. 46 million people. Natural disasters are associated with increased prevalence of psychiatric morbidity such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. 1 2 Children and adolescents may develop PTSD after exposure to an earthquake; reported rates range from 21% to 70%. 3 4 Follow-up studies have shown long-term persistence of PTSD symptoms. 5 Notwithstanding high prevalence rates and a significant impact on public health, 6 there are relatively few published studies evaluating the efficacy of interventions in this area for children. 7 Given the extent of mental health problems following earthquakes, brief, effective and cost-effective treatment interventions for children are urgently needed. One relatively simple intervention is expressive writing (EW), the written disclosure of traumatic experiences. Typically, participants write about a traumatic experience over 3-4 consecutive days, for 15-20 minutes a day. Participants are invited to write continuously about an upsetting or traumatic experience and to focus on their deepest thoughts and feelings about the experience. They are told not

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__________________________________________________________________ to be unduly concerned about spelling or grammar. 8 EW improves psychological and physical well-being. 9 10 In the last 20 years, this approach has been tested with different populations, mostly clinical patients or college students. 11 A few published EW trials with younger people suggest that clinical and at-risk samples can receive some benefits from EW and disclosure interventions. 12 No studies have been conducted in children traumatised by an earthquake. Some studies 13 have explored the content of the writings and found that the use of words that reflect causality and insight regarding the trauma predict positive health outcomes. Where participants are encouraged to adopt a n arrative and cohesive approach there are fewer intrusive thoughts and a positive health outcome. 14 Positive experiences, negative emotions, personal growth, and having a future-orientated perspective in writing are associated with health improvement. 15 16 17 Most EW studies provide simple verbal or written instructions for their participants, emphasising the focus on the emotional content of their writing, but not providing further guidance for each day of the task. This study moves beyond the simple writing task to explore whether more sophisticated instructions help the writer to express their trauma-related thoughts more effectively. Each day the participants are provided with specific instructions to help them develop effective narratives. 2. Method A. Participants Eighty-two students from three fourth grade classes participated in the study. Written consent was obtained from the school. All students provided oral consent and the study was approved by the University of Nottingham ethics committee. B. Measures PTSD symptoms were assessed using the Children’s Revised Impact of Event Scale CRIES, 18 a 13-item scale measuring symptoms of intrusion, avoidance and arousal, with a Cronbach's α coefficient of 0.80. 19 The CRIES was translated into Chinese. Anxiety and depression were assessed using the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scales (RCADS), 20 a 47-item self-report questionnaire, with scales corresponding to separation anxiety disorder (SAD), social phobia (SP), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and major depressive disorder (MDD). There is support for the RCADS in non-referred samples of youth. 21 All subscales of RCADS have a good internal consistency around 0.8. A previously translated Chinese version was used in this study. The Changes in Outlook Questionnaire (CiOQ) 22 is a 26 self-report measure

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__________________________________________________________________ that was designed to assess positive and negative changes in the aftermath of adversity. It consists of an 11-item scale assessing positive changes, and 15-item scale assessing negative changes. Each item is answered on a 6-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). It has been used in studies with a wide variety of participants following trauma and adversity. 23 The CiOQ was translated into Chinese. One item from the positive scale and two items from the negative scale, which were hard to understand in Chinese, were deleted. C. Study Design The intervention was implemented with the students in three classes of a primary school in Beichuan County, which was badly damaged in the earthquake. We applied a pre-post design with treatment (GNT, two classes) and control (MEWP, one class) groups. Children in both groups completed questionnaires one day before and one day after the sessions. The assessments were administered by trained volunteers who were blind to condition. D. Writing Conditions GNT aims to enable participants to better express their trauma-related emotion. In the GNT condition, students were asked to consider their experience in the earthquake over three consecutive days. Day 1: describe the earthquake experience and their deepest feelings and thoughts. Day 2: write down negative thoughts and feelings relating to the earthquake. Day 3: write down any positive thoughts and feelings about the earthquake, and their perspective on the future. In MEWP, students were asked to write about the earthquake experience and their deepest feeling and thoughts for three consecutive days. This was adapted from Pennebaker’s standard EW instructions. All were told not to be concerned about spelling or grammar. Many students in MEWP found it difficult to write for three consecutive days, so they were told they could draw or paint their thoughts instead on the third day. Children’s drawings are an effective way of dealing with traumarelated emotion. 24 3. Result A. Baseline No statistically significant differences were found between the groups in relation to age and gender, both groups averaging 9.77 years. B. Impact of Treatment The means and standard deviations of the subscales at pre- and post- test are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Comparison of scale scores in GNT (n=52) and Control (n=30) Pre Post Intervention Intervention

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__________________________________________________________________ treatment Measure Mean(SD) Intrusion GNT 9.33(4.10) Control 8.43(5.35) Avoidance GNT 8.79(4.33) Control 6.70(5.06) Arousal GNT 10.00(4.22) Control 9.87(4.50) PTSD_Total GNT 28.12(8.22) Control 25.00(11.64) General Anxiety Disorder GNT 7.10(4.09) Control 7.03(3.86) Panic disorder GNT 6.77(4.59) Control 5.87(4.96) Positive GNT 37.31(9.94) Control 43.40(8.46) Negative GNT 34.13(12.25) Control 32.80(11.68) Note:**p