Starting with two pioneering studies in the 1990s – Cathy Caruth’s Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History and Kali Tal’s Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma – Trauma Studies have demonstrated that language lies at the core of the experience of trauma, although in an unusual way. Indeed, it is nowadays widely recognised that trauma corresponds to an extreme event which challenges the limits of language. It is, in other words, an ‘unspeakable event’ (Caruth 1996 and LaCapra 2001) or an event ‘defined by the subject’s incapacity to respond adequately’ (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973), an experience belonging to ‘discourses of the unsayable’ (Coupland and Coupland 1997). This is due to the fact that trauma is a particular form of memory that struggles to be fully processed. However, despite being an unutterable event (and, therefore, an event beyond language), trauma needs to be transformed into a narrative in order to be located and put in the past (Bessel van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart 1995). Despite the fact that many contributions have to a significant extent explored how trauma texts work, there are very few studies focusing on the way language works to represent trauma (Busch and McNamara 2020). There are even fewer works about the way in which multiple languages (multilingualism) are used to discuss trauma. This gap is particularly glaring given that experiences of trauma are often set in multilingual backgrounds where languages carry a symbolic power; as such, it represents a productive area in which trauma studies could further advance. In this special issue, we aim to explore the interface between trauma and multilingualism in literary texts. Multilingual writing offers a possible vehicle to narrate trauma; furthermore, it can be used to process traumata inscribed in language such as the Shoah, wartime atrocities, slavery, colonialism, genocide, exile and migration. Through particular multilingual poetics, multilingual texts offer an alternative perspective of these events, often that of underprivileged subjects such as immigrants, guest workers and former colonial subjects. Thus, officially accepted versions of traumata may be challenged and retold in a new way, or individual trauma narrated for the first time. The articles in this special issue focus on theoretical approaches to the interface of trauma and literary multilingualism, as well as analyses of specific case studies, both with a historical perspective and of contemporary literature.
Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, special issue su Trauma and Literary Multilingualism
Sandra Vlasta;
2022-01-01
Abstract
Starting with two pioneering studies in the 1990s – Cathy Caruth’s Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History and Kali Tal’s Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma – Trauma Studies have demonstrated that language lies at the core of the experience of trauma, although in an unusual way. Indeed, it is nowadays widely recognised that trauma corresponds to an extreme event which challenges the limits of language. It is, in other words, an ‘unspeakable event’ (Caruth 1996 and LaCapra 2001) or an event ‘defined by the subject’s incapacity to respond adequately’ (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973), an experience belonging to ‘discourses of the unsayable’ (Coupland and Coupland 1997). This is due to the fact that trauma is a particular form of memory that struggles to be fully processed. However, despite being an unutterable event (and, therefore, an event beyond language), trauma needs to be transformed into a narrative in order to be located and put in the past (Bessel van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart 1995). Despite the fact that many contributions have to a significant extent explored how trauma texts work, there are very few studies focusing on the way language works to represent trauma (Busch and McNamara 2020). There are even fewer works about the way in which multiple languages (multilingualism) are used to discuss trauma. This gap is particularly glaring given that experiences of trauma are often set in multilingual backgrounds where languages carry a symbolic power; as such, it represents a productive area in which trauma studies could further advance. In this special issue, we aim to explore the interface between trauma and multilingualism in literary texts. Multilingual writing offers a possible vehicle to narrate trauma; furthermore, it can be used to process traumata inscribed in language such as the Shoah, wartime atrocities, slavery, colonialism, genocide, exile and migration. Through particular multilingual poetics, multilingual texts offer an alternative perspective of these events, often that of underprivileged subjects such as immigrants, guest workers and former colonial subjects. Thus, officially accepted versions of traumata may be challenged and retold in a new way, or individual trauma narrated for the first time. The articles in this special issue focus on theoretical approaches to the interface of trauma and literary multilingualism, as well as analyses of specific case studies, both with a historical perspective and of contemporary literature.
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