Description:

Join us for this three-day symposium hosted by the Remaking Media and Mental Health Across Cultures Northwestern Buffett Global Catalyst Grant Group—which includes Rebecca Seligman, Peter Locke, Dave Tolchinsky and Kate Erskine—and the Northwestern Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab for the Promotion of Mental Health via Cinematic Arts, and supported by the Northwestern University Office of the Provost's N. W. Harris Lecture Fund.

PROGRAM FOR THURSDAY, MAY 25

12:00 p.m. | Lunch and Keynote with Ana Antic: “Searching for Trauma: Narratives and Politics of Loss and Suffering in Eastern Europe”

Ana Antiç is a Professor in the Department of English, Germanic, and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Author of Therapeutic Fascism: Experiencing the Violence of the Nazi New World Order, and the forthcoming Non-aligned Psychiatry in the Cold War: Revolution, Emancipation, and Re-imagining the Human Psyche. Her articles include "Decolonising madness: Transcultural Psychiatry, International Order, and the Birth of a Global Psyche in the Aftermath of WWII," and "Pedagogy of workers' self-management: Terror, therapy and reform Communism after the Tito-Stalin split."

3:00 p.m. | Coffee and Panel Discussion with Robin Means Coleman, Miriam Petty, Ana Antiç and Peter Locke: "The Trauma Trope"

Trauma has become a defining feature of contemporary storytelling across all mediums. Film and television, in particular, use trauma as a framework for explicating a protagonist’s motivations, as well as to reach towards a preconceived audience of survivors. Indeed, the trauma plot is a narrative template that argues for the individuality of trauma while also asserting its universality. Moreover, film is inextricably linked to our contemporary understanding of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, especially with the idea of the “flashback,” a term that belongs to both the cinematic and clinical vocabulary of trauma. This panel brings together scholars to discuss, analyze and debate the entanglements of trauma and visual culture. What does it mean to expand our cultural idea of trauma to include such a diverse array of experiences? Is the empathy evoked by traumatic narratives always ethical? Does imagery of trauma cultivate voyeuristic desire?

5:00 p.m. | Buffet Dinner at The Block Museum

6:00 p.m. | Screening of No Go Backs and A Thousand Years Ago

8:00 p.m. |  Panel Discussion with Michael Metzger, Zayd Dohrn, Jake Smith and Edgar Jorge Baralt: "Climate Change, Eco-Anxiety and Catastrophe Media"
Co-Sponsored with the Climate Crisis + Media Arts Northwestern Buffett Global Working Group