Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities fellows program

Visiting Fellowship Program 2008/2009 William S. Vaughn Visiting Fellowship

New Directions in Trauma Studies
Co-directors: Monica J. Casper (Sociology/Women’s and Gender Studies) and Vivien Green Fryd (History of Art)

The Warren Center will host a year-long faculty seminar to examine the emergence of Trauma Studies as an interdisciplinary field of study. In the wake of such recent large-scale traumas as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, everyday violence such as rape and incest, and historical catastrophes such as the Holocaust, it seems timely that scholars intellectually engage with multiple dimensions of human suffering and its repercussions and representations.

Although Trauma Studies has emerged as an object of scholarly attention, little agreement exists about the boundaries, scope, and content of this new field. This seminar will turn a critical lens onto the "fact" of trauma, lived experiences of trauma, stories and representations about trauma, and intellectual and pedagogical issues related to scholarly investigations of trauma. An interdisciplinary approach will greatly enhance this emerging area of scholarship to further understand the individual and collective experiences of trauma, to intervene in human suffering resulting from trauma, and to assist in preventing traumatic events.

A set of tensions lies at the heart of this enterprise: the everyday and the extreme; individual identity and collective experience; history and the present; experience and representation; facts and memory, and "clinical" and "cultural." By rigorously engaging these tensions, we seek to deliberately intervene in the formation of Trauma Studies. While psychological and clinical responses are critical to alleviation of human suffering, so too are humanistic understandings of how traumas are represented and understood culturally, social science perspectives on how traumas and organizational responses to them may be patterned, institutionalized, and contested, and interdisciplinary perspectives on how people and communities make sense of individual and collective trauma through literature, art, music, dance, spoken word, media, science, and other cultural forms.

We invite applications from scholars in all disciplines whose lively presence will help to focus our work and stimulate discussions. We anticipate that the successful applicant will have completed the terminal degree in his/her field and will have a record of scholarly publication. The seminar meets weekly and will allow the visiting fellow ample time to pursue a major research project. The combined interests of the visiting fellow and the Vanderbilt faculty fellows will determine the form and content of seminar discussions.

The visiting fellow is provided with a spacious office within the Center's own building. The fellowship pays a stipend of up to $40,000 and provides $2,000 in moving expenses.

Application materials may be downloaded here.

Complete applications must be postmarked by JANUARY 18, 2008.

For more detailed information please contact:

Mona Frederick, Executive Director
Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
VU Station B #351534, Nashville, TN 37235-1534
Tel: (615) 343-6060

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