Event Host: The Institute for Chinese Studies
Short Description: The study of trauma became prominent in the twentieth century with the rise of psychoanalysis and the outbreak of the World Wars, especially after the Holocaust; but the causes of trauma—war, death, violence, displacement—had appeared throughout human history.
Xiaofei Tian
Professor of Chinese Literature
Director, Regional Studies East Asia
East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Harvard University
The study of trauma became prominent in the twentieth century with the rise of psychoanalysis and the outbreak of the World Wars, especially after the Holocaust; but the causes of trauma — war, death, violence, displacement—had appeared throughout human history. How does one remember a traumatic experience, write about it, and turn it into a work of literature? What happens when the received language of poetry resists the representation of pain and trauma? This talk focuses on these questions through examining the Hou Jing Rebellion and the fall of the southern empire in the mid-sixth century and their impact on the courtier and poet, Yu Xin (513-581), who spent the last years of his life as an exile in the north and wrote a poetry of loss and mourning.
For more information visit the East Asian Studies Center.