Trauma, Resilience and Representation

The representation of historical events and experiences is often expected to be factual and objective. Memories tend to be considered credible and publicly accepted only when presented as linear narratives. Stories of flight and expulsion are kept secret for various reasons: out of shame, deference, pain. Or they are not asked about because they are considered troubling.

In this panel literary scholars Ulrich Baer and Michael Rothberg (virtual), psychiatrist Malek Bajbouj and psychologist and activist Saideh Saadat-Lendle ask: How can historical ruptures and individual or collective experiences of violence and trauma be represented? How can memories be acknowledged without pathologizing the people who share them? And how can moments of resilience, resistance or happiness also be discovered in such memories?

Moderated by Carolin Emcke