From psychoanalysis to cultural trauma: narrating legacies of collective suffering

Abstract

This paper aims to offer both an interpretation and a critique of theepistemological foundations underlying one of the most recentapproaches to trauma studies: cultural trauma theory. After theFirst World War, the founding father of psychoanalysis, SigmundFreud, inquired into whether his diagnostic of “traumaticneurosis” could shed light on how collectives deal with unsettlingexperiences and memories. Throughout the intervening decades,Freud´s insights into collective trauma have attracted the interestof scholars from various disciplines within the humanities andsocial sciences, from literary studies to historiography, memorystudies, and, finally – the focus of this paper – cultural and socialtheory. By underlining the ways in which the proponents ofcultural trauma theory – Jeffrey Alexander, Neil Smelzer, PiotrSztompka, Bernhard Giesen, and Ron Eyerman – have reframedFreudian ideas regarding the transmission of legacies of collectivesuffering, the paper considers whether the notion of trauma canbe extended to the analysis of cultures and societies. It exploresthe ambivalent relationship between psychoanalysis andcontemporary cultural trauma theory to disclose the theoreticalassumptions and weaknesses of the latter