theorizing Trauma, Building Community

The Medical Humanities & Trauma Studies Working Group focuses on promoting an intersectional understanding of the human body—how its exterior navigates spaces, how its interior responds to change, and how it reacts to trauma. We will discuss a variety of texts drawing from trauma theory, interdisciplinary work in the medical humanities and disability studies, and literary and cultural theory engaging with medical themes. Through close reading and collaborative discussion, we will foster dialogue about the human body and physical/psychic suffering, while also creating community among graduate students. In particular, we will strive to cultivate a safe scholarly space in which to discuss how gendered, sexualized, racialized, and disabled/chronically ill bodies and marginalized voices have been portrayed, interpreted, and understood throughout history and in our contemporary moment today.