This Element investigates the challenges and possibilities of writing histories of trauma. Interpreting trauma as not only an event but also as an analytical framework and an apparatus for working on suffering, it explores how the historiography of trauma intersects with pressing matters of postcolonialism, historical subjectivity, and modernity. It is designed to illuminate the pressing theoretical matters that histories of trauma touch upon, whether explicitly or implicitly. Drawing from histories of trauma as well as foundational theoretical work in literary studies and memory studies, it argues that thinking traumatic histories requires a commitment on the part of historians to theoretical self-reflexivity, to querying not just the past or the archive for the traces of trauma, but the concept itself in its historical and historiographical modulations.
| ISBN: | 9781009496179 |
| Publication date: | 30th June 2026 |
| Author: | Zachary Riebeling |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 75 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Elements. Elements in Historical Theory and Practice |
| Genres: |
Trauma and shock Historiography Comparative literature |
This Element investigates the challenges and possibilities of writing histories of trauma. Interpreting trauma as not only an event but also as an analytical framework and an apparatus for working on suffering, it explores how the historiography of trauma intersects with pressing matters of postcolonialism, historical subjectivity, and modernity. It is designed to illuminate the pressing theoretical matters that histories of trauma touch upon, whether explicitly or implicitly. Drawing from histories of trauma as well as foundational theoretical work in literary studies and memory studies, it argues that thinking traumatic histories requires a commitment on the part of historians to theoretical self-reflexivity, to querying not just the past or the archive for the traces of trauma, but the concept itself in its historical and historiographical modulations.
Thinking Traumatic Histories features in the following genres: Trauma and shock, Historiography, Comparative literature
Thinking Traumatic Histories is available in Paperback, Hardback
Thinking Traumatic Histories was written by Zachary Riebeling and published by Cambridge University Press
Thinking Traumatic Histories has 75 pages
Yes it is part of Cambridge Elements. Elements in Historical Theory and Practice series
£49.50