Studying Trauma as a Part of Life and Understanding/Seeking Reconciliation (Part 1) (VL) (Panel)

Comparative Literature / Interdisciplinary Humanities

Rohini Chakraborty (Jadavpur University)

Trauma when remains unresolved can end up causing more harm than one can imagine. Trauma can be caused by the most insignificant of incidents that happen in a person’s life. But how far have we come in understanding the trope of trauma? How do we talk about it with proper sensitivity? How much do we push before a past trauma breaks us again? In these trying times when solidarity and care are the only ways to make the world a more humane space to sustain within, how shall we treat the trauma of our loved ones and fellow human beings? How do we realize that the shame associated with trauma is but extreme societal conditioning? How do we unlearn the social stigma related to trauma? How does trauma force us to alter our memories as a defense mechanism?

This panel invites abstracts (200-300 words) along with bio-notes (100 words) to understand trauma from literary as well as interdisciplinary approaches and study the different aspects of it. Through the investigation of literature, socio-political readings, and psychological understandings the panel aims to look at how the experience of trauma shared or not can become a common base to offer solidarity to the whole of humanity. Be it a worldwide pandemic, a natural disaster or heinous crimes trauma is a part and parcel of these experiences. Through this session, we would like to look at the concept of healing and care as a form of reconciliation. Some of the key topics that the panel wishes to address are:

· Trauma and its response

· Loss of knowledge systems

· Lockdowns and close encounters with trauma

· Epidemics/pandemics/natural disasters and community trauma

· Gendered violence

· Abduction of Indigenous women

· Intergenerational trauma and the role of the past

· Healing and the supernatural

This panel invites submissions to understand trauma from literary as well as interdisciplinary approaches and study the different aspects of it. Through the investigation of literature, socio-political readings, and psychological understandings, this panel looks at how the experience of trauma, shared or not, can become a common base to offer solidarity to the whole of humanity. Through this session, we would like to look at the concept of healing and care as a form of reconciliation.