IMC 2023: Sessions
Session 242: Trauma and Recovery, I: Trauma Discourse and Its Limits
Monday 3 July 2023, 14.15-15.45
| Organiser: | Grace Elizabeth O'Duffy, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Adam Kelly, Faculty of English, University of Oxford |
| Paper 242-a | Medieval Melancholies: A New North European Tradition? (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Mentalities |
| Paper 242-b | Sexual Violence in the Old Norse Stjórn: How to Translate Biblical Accounts of Rape? (Language: English) Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Rhetoric, Women's Studies |
| Paper 242-c | 'Myselven can not telle why the sothe': Speaking Pain and Gain in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Mentalities |
| Abstract | This panel, the first of two in this series entitled ‘Trauma and Recovery' offers an exploration of contemporary discourse on trauma and its limits when applied to medieval literature: Adam Kelly considers the complexity of setting responses to trauma in Old English literature within a tradition of antidepressive melancholy; Natasha Bradley follows, exploring the cultural valence of translations of sexual violence in the Old Norse Sjórn; Pamela Yee concludes by looking to Progressive Grief Disorder as a new taxonomy of pain that takes us beyond melancholy in the Book of the Duchess, before turning to narrative as a means of healing. Each paper approaches the question of how best to apply our developing understanding of trauma to medieval texts, with terminology, historicity, and sensitivity in mind. |