Literary Trauma

Deborah Horvitz teaches at Salem State College and at the School at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

"I like the almost seamless blending of literary discussion with psychological information, as well as the author's use of methodologies from the areas of women's studies, cultural studies, African-American literary and folk studies, multiculturalism, and psychoanalysis. The book is significant to the entire field of women's studies and is also a marker for the gaps in our accepted academic discourses. It is, in a large sense, cultural history. By paralleling turn-of-the-century works with very contemporary ones, Horvitz creates a meaningful century of discussion." — Linda Wagner-Martin, author of Favored Strangers: Gertrude Stein and Her Family"Horvitz uses recent trauma theory as she analyzes the representation of sexual trauma and heterosexual sadomasochism in selected works by a diverse group of women authors. This book provides a thoughtful and eminently readable contribution to the study of psychoanalysis and literature, trauma literature, feminist studies, and women's fiction." — J. Brooks Bouson, author of Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison

• Acknowledgments1. Introduction: Bearing Witness 2. Reading the Unconscious in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead 3. Freud and Feminism in Gayl Jones's Corregidora and Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina 4. Hysteria and Trauma in Pauline Hopkins's Of One Blood; Or, the Hidden Self 5. Postmodern Realism,Truth and Lies in Joyce Carol Oates's What I Lived For 6. Intertextuality and Poststructural Realism in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"7. Conclusion: Words Finally Spoken NotesWorks CitedIndex