scholarship recs

One of these days, I will finally get around to writing the paper I have in mind, using this article to read Star Trek: Enterprise's time travel plot, and then it's over for y'all. Until then, I will simply recommend that you read this wonderful paper about the weird temporality of allusions in prequels.

This is the book that got me started in trauma theory, and I couldn't have asked for a better introduction. It is, relatively speaking, quite recent and does a fabulous job of giving a sense of the history and momentum of trauma studies. Also, bonus, it's significantly less difficult to read than most my other trauma studies recommendations on a purely emotional level.

Picking one singluar Anne Carson work to put on any recommendation list is a nigh-impossible challenge for me, but I ended up going with EtB because (a) it's her most traditionally scholarly work (it began its life as her PhD dissertation) and (b) I recommend it to my classmates so often it's become a department joke and (c) it is probably her most generative work for me personally, even if only in a fannish way (see: my "Short Talk on Vulcans").

I will freely admit that I am not a political scientist and thus have very little understanding of the current state of that field in re: defining fascism. However, I don't really use this essay to understand real-world fascism, because that's not my academic area; I use it to understand authoritarian tropes in literature and for that purpose, it is incredibly generative.

This is one of the foundational texts of modern trauma theory. It is a crushing read, emotionally speaking: just to give you a sense, Herman comes to trauma theory in general from her specific work with rape survivors, particularly suvivors of childhood sexual abuse, and one of her first major works was a paper arguing that father-daughter incest is far, far too common for anyone's comfort. But if you can stomach it (a non-trivial challenge, particularly for people with a history of domestic abuse or sexual assault), it is so very worthwhile. It is one of the most moving texts I've read in the last five years.

This is pushing the boundaries of "scholarship", but those two paragraphs in the middle about the relationship between history and fact live in my head rent-free.

This article is a fabulous encapsulation of the politics of translation. I am especially struck by this point:

The idea that Pygmalion touches [his statue's] breasts may not be entirely wrong. This may very well be where Ovid would have us envision Pygmalion’s hands. But he leaves this to our imagination. What I find interesting is that, faced with this choice, so many translators have opted to make explicit what is perhaps implicit in Ovid.

(596)

This is the most recent addition to my list. Sharrock possesses the highest honor I can bestow: Certified Ovid Understander™. Here, she puts it to use exploring the elegiac nature of the Metamorphoses (an epic poem), which crosses genres in part simply because Ovid himself is writing it.

This is a reading of the Iliad, informed by its author's experience treating Vietnam veterans with PTSD. It focuses on what Shay sees as the "moral" dimension of trauma: the idea that an experience gets its capacity to traumatize from some sort of subversion of the proper order of the world as the traumatized person understands it. The last chapter (which is largely about the impossibility of having a non-political stance on trauma) alone is worth the price of entry.