Trauma as counter-revolutionary colonisation: narratives from (post)revolutionary Egypt

We argue that multiple levels of trauma were present in Egypt before, during and after the 2011 revolution. Individual, social and political trauma constitute a triangle of traumatisation which was strategically employed by the Egyptian counter-revolutionary forces – primarily the army and the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood – to maintain their political and economic power over and above the social, economic and political interests of others. Through the destruction of physical bodies, the fragmentation and polarisation of social relations and the violent closure of the newly emerged political public sphere, these actors actively repressed the potential for creative and revolutionary transformation. To better understand this multi-layered notion of trauma, we turn to Habermas’ ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’ thesis which offers a critical lens through which to examine the wider political and economic structures and context in which trauma occurred as well as its effects on the personal, social and political realms. In doing so, we develop a novel conception of trauma that acknowledges individual, social and political dimensions. We apply this conceptual framing to empirical narratives of trauma in Egypt’s pre- and post-revolutionary phases, thus both developing a non-Western application of Habermas’ framework and revealing ethnographic accounts of the revolution by activists in Cairo

From Surveillance to Witnessing: Revanche, Red Road, and the Anti-Revenge Film

This essay examines recent European art films that reinterpret the revenge plot and radically challenge the possibility of legitimized violence. I argue that what I term “anti-revenge” films, in particular Andrea Arnold’s Red Road (2006), and Götz Spielmann’s Revanche (2008), frustrate the desire for vengeance (both the protagonist’s and the spectator’s), replacing violent spectacle with uneasy engagement that inhibits revenge, gesturing instead toward the possibility, however remote, of forgiveness. In both films prolonged surveillance, surveillance ostensibly in the service of retribution, inadvertently becomes a means for ethical engagement that actually prohibits violence. In their failure to conform to generic conventions and their depiction of the collapse of the retributive drive, these films challenge the moral legitimacy of revenge, substituting uneasy, often inconclusive moments of potential forgiveness for violent spectacle

The Hybrid Legal Geographies of a War Crimes Court

This paper explores the implications of understanding war crime trials as hybrid legal spaces. Drawing on twelve months of residential fieldwork in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, it examines the circulation of evidence, the choreography of the court room and the nature and possibilities for legal observation. Analyzing hybrid legal geographies foregrounds the material and embodied nature of trials, illuminating the forms of comportment, categorization and exclusion through which law establishes its legitimacy. Rather than emphasizing separation and distance, the lens of hybridity illuminates the multiple ways in which war crimes trials are grounded in the social and political context of present day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Consequently this analysis traces the disjuncture between the imagined geographies of legal jurisdiction and the material and embodied spaces of trial practices. In conclusion we argue that the establishment of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrates the tensions that emerge when an institution of trial justice is used to strengthen the coherence of a post-conflict state.This paper is based on research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-061-25-0479).This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045608.2014.892365

Shot at Dawn: Late Photography and the Anti-War Memorial

The military executions of World War One are the subject of Chloe Dewe Mathews’s 2014 photographic series Shot at Dawn. These events—in which hundreds of soldiers were court-martialled and executed for cowardice and desertion—remain controversial, without consensus or established collective narrative. This article charts historic negotiations with the subject but also considers more recent efforts to integrate these proceedings within memorial practice. World War One remembrance activities, whilst diverse, have often emphasised sacrifice, heroism and community. Correspondingly, participation and engagement were core values in the major British World War One centenary arts project, titled 14-18 NOW, from which Shot at Dawn was commissioned. Chloe Dewe Mathews’s contribution to the programme, however, presents a photographic aesthetic of resistance to the principles of inclusivity and remembrance elsewhere embraced by the project. As such, the work challenges the consensual politics of commemoration and—through the practices of late photography, land art and performance pilgrimage— substitutes trauma and forgetfulness for reconciliation and memory

Education then and now: making the case for ecol-agogy

The processes, settings and outcomes of human education have distinctive impact on the human and non-human world: this paper sets out to discuss what may have motivated the initiation of human education, how it has been maintained why the outcome has wide-ranging, and often negative, planetary impact. The analysis offers a multi-disciplinary account of education, from pre-history to the present, noting that humans, past and present are born into an ‘open world’ that requires world building or, niche construction. As a result, cultural and genetic evolution are out of synchronisation instigating an existential threat and the anxious experience of ‘adaptive-lag’ leading to the motive for continued niche construction. Education is presented as a particular type of niche construction requiring teachers and the use of symbolic verbal language to help learners move from simplistic ‘split’ thinking to the more mature position where the needs of self and others can be met

Researching Memory in Early Modern Studies

This essay pursues the study of early modern memory across a chronologically, conceptually and thematically broad canvas in order to address key questions about the historicity of memory and the methodologies of memory studies. First, what is the value for our understanding of early modern memory practices of transporting the methodologies of contemporary memory studies backwards, using them to study the memorial culture of a time before living memory? Second, what happens to the cross-disciplinary project of memory studies when it is taken to a distant period, one that had its own highly self-conscious and much debated cultures of remembering? Drawing on evidence and debates from a range of disciplinary locations, but primarily focusing on literary and historical studies, the essay interrogates crucial differences and commonalities between memory studies and early modern studies

Family medicine graduates' perceptions of intimidation, harassment, and discrimination during residency training

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite there being considerable literature documenting learner distress and perceptions of mistreatment in medical education settings, these concerns have not been explored in-depth in Canadian family medicine residency programs. The purpose of the study was to examine intimidation, harassment and/or discrimination (IHD) as reported by Alberta family medicine graduates during their two-year residency program.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective questionnaire survey was conducted of all (n = 377) family medicine graduates from the University of Alberta and University of Calgary who completed residency training during 2001-2005. The frequency, type, source, and perceived basis of IHD were examined by gender, age, and Canadian vs international medical graduate. Descriptive data analysis (frequency, crosstabs), Chi-square, Fisher's Exact test, analysis of variance, and logistic regression were used as appropriate.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 377 graduates, 242 (64.2%) responded to the survey, with 44.7% reporting they had experienced IHD while a resident. The most frequent type of IHD experienced was in the form of inappropriate verbal comments (94.3%), followed by work as punishment (27.6%). The main sources of IHD were specialist physicians (77.1%), hospital nurses (54.3%), specialty residents (45.7%), and patients (35.2%). The primary basis for IHD was perceived to be gender (26.7%), followed by ethnicity (16.2%), and culture (9.5%). A significantly greater proportion of males (38.6%) than females (20.0%) experienced IHD in the form of work as punishment. While a similar proportion of Canadian (46.1%) and international medical graduates (IMGs) (41.0%) experienced IHD, a significantly greater proportion of IMGs perceived ethnicity, culture, or language to be the basis of IHD.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Perceptions of IHD are prevalent among family medicine graduates. Residency programs should explicitly recognize and robustly address all IHD concerns.</p

Signifying Trauma in the Post-9/11 Combat Film: The Hurt Locker and In the Valley of Elah

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor and Francis in Journal of War and Culture Studies on 13/05/2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17526272.2019.1615706 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This article addresses two Iraq War films, The Hurt Locker (Bigelow 2008) and In the Valley of Elah (Haggis 2007), through the lens of trauma theory. Uniquely, it engages with Slavoj Žižek’s account of the Real in its analysis of how victim/perpetrator trauma is signified in their respective narrative structures and visual style. The primary argument is that the pattern of traumatic memory is reflected in their narrative modes. At the same time, it claims that the unfolding narrative of In the Valley of Elah mimics certain forms of trauma treatment, operating in a therapeutic mode for its characters (as well as offering narrative resolution for spectators). Such analysis of trauma differs from other scholarly approaches to these films that have variously considered them from perspectives of: embodiment in the war film (Burgoyne 2012); the ethics of viewing traumatic suffering (Straw 2011); the de-politicisation of torture by the inclusion of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Barker 2011); indifference to post-9/11 war films as an inability to respond to the trauma and loss that terrorism poses (Toffoletti and Grace 2010); trauma and the militarised body (Andreescu 2016); and the narration of trauma in Iraq War Films (Kopka 2018)