Art Practice Commons^™

The Wounded Inheritance: Epigenetics And The Family Line, Lisa Banta

University Honors Theses

Through the process of researching, conceptualizing, and creating my honors thesis I have been investigating my previously unknown family history and the events that led into generations of parental abandonment and inflicted trauma, in tandem with learning some basics about the research and science of epigenetics. In my own family line, the traumas endured by and inflicted upon the last five generations have, with no exaggeration, shaped every aspect of my life and history. Epigenetics explains how severe trauma can be passed down many generations through chemical changes in DNA. In other words, individuals may carry within their own bodies …