• Course Number: ENGL 197
  • Prerequisites:

    Writing 2 or 50 or 109 or English 10 or upper-division standing.

  • Advisory Enrollment Information:

    This course cannot be repeated and is limited to upper-division English majors only.

  • Catalog Course Entry: ENGL 197
  • Quarter: Winter 2023

The course starts with a broad discussion of trauma studies across neural, somatic and socio-political domains. It pays particular attention to how writers, philosophers, neuroscientists and psychologists shifted away from thinking of trauma as individual experiences of exception disaster to seeing it as a generalized, everyday condition of modern society. Set texts will be drawn mainly from modern literature, all of which engages with disturbing material. In place of the standard trigger warning, the course offers an opportunity to practice trauma-informed somatic experiencing techniques.

Week 1: What is trauma? An interdisciplinary perspective
Week 2: Exploring Triggers through Somatic Embodiment
Week 3: Understanding Violence
Week 4: Connecting Anger, Control and Entitlement
Week 5: Coercion and Consent
Week 6: Trauma Bond
Week 7: Victim Blaming and Institutional Betrayal
Week 8: Psychopathology and Deception
Week 9: Adaptive Dissociation
Week 10: Justice and Resilience

Instructor:

  • Schedule & Location
  • Day(s): fri
  • Time: 9:00 am–11:50 am
  • Location: SH 2623