Towards a Critical Trauma Studies: A Response to Felix Lang

Abstract

In this response, I agree with Felix Lang about the need to problematize trauma studies’ prevalent underlying assumptions. However, I suggest that we should go a step further, namely towards a phenomenological account of trauma rooted in Frankfurt School critical theory. Such an approach enables us to pay attention to the political power dynamics within which trauma studies is enmeshed, and argue against the reification and objectification of trauma. It also allows for an intersubjective (re)interpretation of trauma that explicitly grounds the experiences of trauma in social and political contexts.