Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-179) and index.
Contents
Introduction : 9/11 and "disturbing remains" -- "Why trauma now?" : Freud and trauma studies -- Memory as testimony in World War II : Freud, Duras, and Kofman -- Melodrama and trauma : displacement in Hitchcock's Spellbound -- Vicarious trauma and "empty" empathy : media images of Rwanda and the Iraq War -- "Translating" trauma in postcolonial contexts : indigeneity on film -- The ethics of witnessing : Maya Deren and Tracey Moffatt -- Epilogue : "Wounded New York" : rebuilding and memorials to 9/11.
Summary
E. Ann Kaplan explores the relationship between the impact of trauma on individuals and on entire cultures and nations. Arguing that humans possess a need to draw meaning from personal experience and to communicate what happens to others, she examines the forms that are used to bridge the experience.