Five sociologists develop a theoretical model of 'cultural trauma' & build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new & binding understandings of social responsibility.

In this collaboratively authored work, five distinguished sociologists develop an ambitious theoretical model of "cultural trauma"—and on this basis build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new and binding understandings of social responsibility. Looking at the "meaning making process" as an open-ended social dialogue in which strikingly different social narratives vie for influence, they outline a strongly constructivist approach to trauma and apply this theoretical model in a series of extensive case studies, including the Nazi Holocaust, slavery in the United States, and September 11, 2001.

In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory: a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Combining a broad narrative sweep with more detailed studies of important events and individuals, Eyerman reaches from Emancipation through the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the New Deal and the Second World War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, as well as providing a compelling account of the birth of African-American identity. Anyone interested in questions of assimilation, multiculturalism and postcolonialism will find this book indispensable.

In this book Jeffrey C. Alexander develops an original social theory of trauma and uses it to carry out a series of empirical investigations into social suffering around the globe. Alexander argues that traumas are not merely psychological but collective experiences, and that trauma work plays a key role in defining the origins and outcomes of critical social conflicts. He outlines a model of trauma work that relates interests of carrier groups, competing narrative identifications of victim and perpetrator, utopian and dystopian proposals for trauma resolution, the performative power of constructed events, and the distribution of organizational resources. Alexander explores these processes in richly textured case studies of cultural-trauma origins and effects, from the universalism of the Holocaust to the particularism of the Israeli right, from postcolonial battles over the Partition of India and Pakistan to the invisibility of the Rape of Nanjing in Maoist China. In a particularly controversial chapter, Alexander describes the idealizing discourse of globalization as a trauma-response to the Cold War. Contemporary societies have often been described as more concerned with the past than the future, more with tragedy than progress. In Trauma: A Social Theory, Alexander explains why.

This volume brings together Ron Eyerman’s most important interventions in the field of cultural trauma and offers an accessible entry point into the origins and development of this theory and a framework of an analysis that has now achieved the status of a research paradigm. This collection of disparate essays, published between 2004 and 2018, coheres around an original introduction that not only provides a historical overview of cultural trauma, but is also an important theoretical contribution to cultural trauma and collective identity in its own right. The Afterword from esteemed sociologist Eric Woods connects the essays and explores their significance for the broader fields of sociology, behavioral science, and trauma studies..

The representation of sexual trafficking in the book of Esther has parallels with the cultural memories, histories, and materialized pain of African(a) girls and women across time and space, from the Persian Empire, to subsequent slave trade routes and beyond. Trafficking Hadassah illuminates that Africana female bodies have been and continue to be colonized and sexualized, exploited for profit and pleasure, causing adverse physical, mental, sexual, socio-cultural, and spiritual consequences for the girls and women concerned. It focuses on sexual trafficking both in the biblical book of Esther and during the transatlantic slave trade to demonstrate how gender and racism intersect with other forms of oppression, including legal oppression, which results in the sexual trafficking of African(a) females. It examines both the conditions and mechanisms by which the trafficking of the virgin girls (who are collectively identified) are legitimated and normalized in the book of Esther, alongside contemporary histories of Africana females. This important book examines ideologies and stereotypes that are used to justify the abuse in both contexts, challenges the complicity of biblical readers and interpreters in violence against girls and women, and illustrates how attention to the nameless, faceless African girls in the text is impacted by the #MeToo and #SayHerName social movements. This book will be of particular interest to those studying the Bible, religion, gender, theology, and sex trafficking. It is also an important book for those in the related fields of Africana Studies, Trauma Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Diaspora Studies, Critical Race Studies, as well as to the general reader.

A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Healing Shared Trauma What can you do when you carry scars not on your body, but within your soul? And what happens when those spiritual wounds exist not just in you, but in everyone in your family, community, and even beyond? Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl has spent years investigating why it is that old and seemingly disconnected traumas can seed their way through communities and across generations. His work culminates in Healing Collective Trauma, a new perspective on trauma that addresses both its visible effects and its most hidden roots. Thomas combines deep knowledge of mystical traditions with the latest scientific research. “In this way,” writes Thomas, “we are weaving a double helix between ancient wisdom and contemporary understanding.” Thomas details the Collective Trauma Integration Process, a group-based modality for evoking and eventually dissolving stuck traumatic energies. Providing structured practices for both students and group facilitators, Healing Collective Trauma is intended to build a practical tool kit for integration. Here, you will learn: • The innumerable ways trauma shapes our world—from identity and health to economy, geopolitics, and the state of the environment • The concept of “trauma loyalty”—unconscious group bonds based in a pain narrative • How the climate crisis is both a manifestation of humanity’s collective trauma and an opportunity to heal • “Retrocausality”—how the power of presence can reshape the past and make new futures possible Including essays contributed by experts such as Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Otto Scharmer, Dr. Christina Bethell, and Ken Wilber, Healing Collective Trauma offers not just an advanced look at community trauma but also a hopeful glimpse of the future. As Thomas declares, “Together, I believe we can and must heal the ‘soul wound’ that marks us all. In so doing, we will awaken to the luminous possibility and profound potential of our true, mutual nature as humankind.”

In this collaboratively authored work, five distinguished sociologists develop an ambitious theoretical model of "cultural trauma"—and on this basis build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new and binding understandings of social responsibility. Looking at the "meaning making process" as an open-ended social dialogue in which strikingly different social narratives vie for influence, they outline a strongly constructivist approach to trauma and apply this theoretical model in a series of extensive case studies, including the Nazi Holocaust, slavery in the United States, and September 11, 2001.

Presents an approach to how culture works in societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, this work shows how these unseen cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions.

In The Long Defeat, Akiko Hashimoto explores the stakes of war memory in Japan after its catastrophic defeat in World War II, showing how and why defeat has become an indelible part of national collective life, especially in recent decades. Divisive war memories lie at the root of the contentious politics surrounding Japan's pacifist constitution and remilitarization, and fuel the escalating frictions in East Asia known collectively as Japan's "history problem." Drawing on ethnography, interviews, and a wealth of popular memory data, this book identifies three preoccupations - national belonging, healing, and justice - in Japan's discourses of defeat. Hashimoto uncovers the key war memory narratives that are shaping Japan's choices - nationalism, pacifism, or reconciliation - for addressing the rising international tensions and finally overcoming its dark history.