Dr. Meg Jensen's talk will discuss links between trauma storytelling and recovery for communities and individuals. Drawing on work from her new book, The Art and Science of Trauma and the Autobiographical, I will look at a number of traditional memorials and counter-monuments sacred to the memory of those lost in disaster and conflict, including the Iwo Jima monument, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Linen Handkerchief Memorial (to victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland), the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and The National Memorial to Peace and Justice. Jensen will analyze how these structures speak to and raise awareness of collective traumatic history while also aiming for communal healing. Finally, Jensen will link these ideas to the numerous Expressive Writing projects of the Life Narrative Research Group at Kingston University, UK, mainly with women victims of sexual violence in conflict in Iraq and, more recently, with Syrian refugees and impoverished Lebanese women in Akkar province Lebanon.
