LIBS 129: Trauma, Text, & the City

Course Description

An exploration of how artists and writers represent urban trauma (terror, violence, destruction, absence) to describe indescribable suffering. In the wake of urban chaos, how do writers make urban community possible? To answer this question, we will examine traumatic events in New York City (9/11) as well as Detroit to understand how emails, photographs, novels, documentaries, and films try to narrate chaos and stabilize urban history. In addition to films that experiment with narrative (such as Memento [2000] and documentaries about 9/11 and Detroit), texts may include writings by psychologists (Freud), urban historians (Sugrue), cultural theorists (Baudrillard), and novelists (Joseph Conrad).