Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Richard Powers's The Echo Maker And The Trauma Of Survival, Nicolas J. Potkalitsky

ETD Archive

In this study, Cathy Caruth's innovative description of trauma as a crisis of survival in works such as "Traumatic Departures: Survival and History in Freud" and Unclaimed Experience (1996) is applied to the story of Mark Schluter's traumatic experience in Richard Powers's The Echo Maker (2006). Theoretically, Caruth's description owes much to Freud's classic accounts of trauma in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) and Moses and Monotheism (1939). In particular, Caruth capitalizes in on Freud's reference to the experience of awakening from traumatic unconsciousness as an "another fright" in the second section of Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud 11). For …

Constructing A Neuroscientific Pastoral Theology Of Fear And Hope, Jason C. Whitehead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary therapeutic circles utilize the concept of anxiety to describe a variety of disorders. Emotional reductionism is a detriment to the therapeutic community and the persons seeking its help. This dissertation proposes that attention to the emotion of fear clarifies our categorization of particular disorders and challenges emotional reductionism. I propose that the emotion of fear, through its theological relationship to hope, is useful in therapeutic practice for persons who experience trauma and PTSD.

I explore the differences between fear and anxiety by deconstructing anxiety. Through this process, I develop four categories which help the emotion of fear stand independent …

The Influence Of Daily Social Stimulation In Ameliorating Ptsd-Like Behavioral And Physiological Changes In Rats Exposed To Chronic Psychosocial Stress, Shyam Seetharaman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals exposed to life-threatening trauma are at increased risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Not all people exposed to trauma, however, go on to develop PTSD. Some evidence suggests that individuals who receive social stimulation, such being involved in supportive social networks, are less likely to develop PTSD compared to those lacking social interactions. Although human research has been effective in demonstrating associations between higher levels of social stimulation and lower incidences of PTSD, there has been a lack of experimental evidence suggesting that social stimulation protects against the onset of the disorder after trauma. Here, we tested the …

Risk And Protective Factors In Mothers With A History Of Incarceration: Do Relationships Buffer The Effects Of Trauma Symptoms And Substance Abuse History, Erin K. Walker

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Can The Wound Be Taken At Its Word?: Performed Trauma In Don Delillo's The Body Artist And Falling Man, Brett Thomas Griffin

English Theses

Two of Don DeLillo’s recently published novels, The Body Artist (2001) and Falling Man (2007), feature performance artists performing trauma. Through the bodies of these performers, DeLillo restates the central concern of trauma studies: if trauma is that which denies mediation, how may we speak about traumatic experience? DeLillo’s stagings of traumatic (re)iterations illustrate how the missed originary moment of trauma precludes directly referential content in traumatic representation. But I propose that performed trauma – the knowledge of forgetting addressed to another – recapitulates the structure of traumatic experience itself, thereby revealing trauma to be wholly constituted in repetition, and …

Illuminating The Queer Subtext: The Unmentioned Affairs In Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, Nora Neill

English Theses

Willa Cather contests the contemporary notion that identification links to a natural or original order. For example, that man equals masculine and femininity comes from an essential connection to woman. Cather deconstructs normativity through her use of character relationships in order to redefine successful interpersonal alliances. Thus, Alexandra, the protagonist of O Pioneers! builds a home and friendships that exemplify alternatives to stasis. My readings of O Pioneers! display the places in the novel where Cather subtly contests the ideology of naturalization. I make lesbian erotic and queer social interactions visible through a discourse on Cather’s symbolism. I favor queer …

Boot Camp For The Psyche: Inoculative Nonfiction And Pre-Memory Structures As Preemptive Trauma Mediation In Fiction And Film, Jacob Michael Hodgen

Theses and Dissertations

While some theorists have hinted at various social functions served by the gothic genre—such as providing an outlet for grief, anxiety, and violence in their various forms—recent research within the last few decades into sociology, military science, and trauma studies supplies compelling new ways of rereading the horror genre. In addition to providing an outlet for grief, anxiety, and violence in their various forms, horror media can now be read as a preemptive measure in an effort to mediate the immediate and long-term effects of the trauma and horror faced by humanity. I argue that in much the same way …

Resiliency In Lesbians With A History Of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Implications For Clinical Practice, Amy R. Menna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This was a collective case where lesbian survivors of childhood sexual abuse were studied. Resiliency is a combination of personality traits and environmental influences that serve to protect an individual from the harmful psychological effects of trauma (Bogar & Hulse-Killaky, 2006). The focus of this study was resiliency skills that lesbians used in working through childhood sexual abuse and clinical applications. Using a qualitative approach, specific inquiries included (a) what resiliency skills were used to work through childhood sexual abuse, (b) how counselors can be helpful and unhelpful, (c) what were some barriers to getting counseling, (d) what are the …

The Moderating Role Of Meaning And Defense Mechanisms In The Association Between Child Sexual Abuse And Romantic Relationship Dysfunction, Angela Fairweather

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigated whether finding meaning in relation to sexual trauma and using mature defense mechanisms would moderate the association between child sexual abuse (CSA) severity and relationship and psychological adjustment in a sample of undergraduate women with a history of child sexual abuse. CSA severity was measured both objectively (i.e., severity of the abusive event) and subjectively (i.e., self-reported perceptions of the severity of the abusive event). As predicted, the interaction of objective CSA severity and mature defenses uniquely predicted one of four aspects of romantic relationship functioning (i.e., dyadic cohesion or doing joint activities with one's partner), …

Comparison Of Two Treatments For Fingertip Amputation: A Retrospective Cohort Study, Karen Olson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: To compare the costs and length of disability for conservative treatment versus skin grafting of distal finger and thumb tip amputations. Methods: Thirty-five zone I finger or thumb tip amputations in thirty-five workers in the Southeastern United States were included in this study. Twenty-four were treated with conservative treatment (bandaging to protect the wound). Eleven were treated with skin grafting. The total cost of medical care, total cost including wage replacement, and the length of disability were compared between the two groups. Impairment at the end of treatment was considered. Results: Even when the cost of wage replacement was …

Changing The Subject: First-Person Narration In And Out Of The Classroom, Susan Friedman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of first-person narration for self-transformation and social change is indicated by exploring connections between three emergent discourses: illness narratives and memoirs by rape survivors in which the subject speaks from a privileged yet socially marginalized position about life-altering experiences; clinical discourse that elaborates treatment methods for empowering trauma survivors and helping them reconnect with the social world; and scholarly discourse that reflects on the relationship between trauma, self-representation, witnessing, and recovery. Post-Foucauldian theories of life-writing illuminate how the author-subjects of survivor narratives discursively reconstruct their shattered subjectivity in a therapeutic relationship with themselves and their readers. Cognitive and …

Perpetrators & Possibilities: Holocaust Diaries, Resistance, And The Crisis Of Imagination, Eryk Emil Tahvonen

History Theses

This thesis examines the way genocide leaves marks in the writings of targeted people. It posits not only that these marks exist, but also that they indicate a type of psychological resistance. By focusing on the ways Holocaust diarists depicted Nazi perpetrators, and by concentrating on the ways language was used to distance the victim from the perpetrator, it is possible to see how Jewish diarists were engaged in alternate and subtle, but nevertheless important, forms of resistance to genocide. The thesis suggest this resistance on the part of victims is similar in many ways to well-known distancing mechanisms employed …

Reading Trauma In Postmodern And Postcolonial Literature: Charlotte Delbo, Toni Morrison, And The Literary Imagination Of The Aftermath, Sylviane Finck

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Some personal or collective histories can never be completely integrated into the continuum of one's emotional life. Such stories produced in traumatic times or in disastrous events are likely to remain only partially understood or accepted. Examining the human consequence of traumatic events such as the enslavement of Africans in the United States or the attempted extermination of the Jewish people in Europe is one challenging focus of this work. It is comparatively productive, however, if these events are approached from the perspective of the trauma they have produced-an approach that suspends chronological and geographical barriers of time and space. …

Impact Of Life Events, Trauma, Interpersonal Conflict And Substance Abuse On Pregnancy Outcomes Of Inner City Women, Barabara A. Caldwell

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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