Topologies of Trauma Essays on the Limit of Knowledge and Memory

This collection of essays explores the mental geography of trauma -- its forms, causes, and possibilities for resolution. Drawing on extensive clinical experience, the contributors offer insightful interpretations of the ways in which memory, repetition, and working-through interact and function, both as modes of conceiving trauma and as components of psychoanalytic technique. Integrating a wealth of material, including the AIDS pandemic, the category of "the pathetic," contemporary television programming, and Schelling's theories on the absolute past, the contributors tease out the meaning of remembering. Repetition is then examined in detail, bringing Freud's Fort-Da paradigm to bear on the question of trauma as well as Jean Laplanche's theory on the relation between seduction and the genesis of trauma. The link between narcissism and trauma repetition is explored, pointing out the way that translation and repetition are interconnected in the psychoanalytic context. Having established the role of repetition in processing trauma, the contributors discuss the process of working-through traumatic events via mourning, analyzing Toni Morrison's Beloved as well as Chilean political upheavals. These insights are extended in the final essays, which focus on the artistic response to World War II and the Holocaust. Book jacket.Belau, Linda is the author of 'Topologies of Trauma Essays on the Limit of Knowledge and Memory', published 2002 under ISBN 9781892746979 and ISBN 1892746972.