The imagination here is to curate a series of conversations between leading scholars in the field of trauma and young and older scholars who are working on developing a new understanding of historical trauma and its transgenerational repercussions in South Africa and the broader African continent. Our aim in holding such a series of scholarly conversations is to conduct an in-depth and on-going examination of historical trauma and its intergenerational repercussions, and to use this platform as an alternative intellectual frontier of knowledge production. We will facilitate scholarly dialogues with a focus especially on the participation of young scholars exploring fresh questions in this field of studies in historical trauma. Most of these dialogues will be by invitation only to allow for extended rigorous discussions; however, some of these conversations will be open to the public. 

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The Future of Trauma: African Scholars Thinking with Cathy Caruth

This was our first dialogue held on 14 October. This Round Table Discussion addressed the future of trauma from different angles. The presentations included discussions on “childhood trauma and psychoanalysis,” “trauma and breathing”, the intersections between “psychological and sociological theories of trauma”, “the art of performing trauma” and how it gives agency to the subaltern in a small black community in a mining town of the Free State Province, and “trauma and the body.”

The link to the recording of the webinar of this event appears below: