Stella Setka is associate professor of English at West Los Angeles College.

Empathy and the Phantasmic in Ethnic American Trauma Narratives is a smart and timely book that raises vital questions about the haunting effects of traumatic memory on cultures and individuals. In her sensitive reading of multi-ethnic, cross-cultural representations of the 'other' in literature and film, Setka makes claims for the ways in which inherited trauma and legacies of rupture, disruption, and loss transcend temporality, collapsing past, present, and future. This is an important book that comes at a critical time in global history, one in which social and political institutions bear the weight of competing traumatic histories. In unpacking the layers of memory and trauma, Setka ultimately makes imperative the capacity for empathy and for ethical witnessing.

• Introduction: Phantasmic Trauma NarrativesChapter 1: Phantasmic Africanisms: Igbo Cosmology in Octavia Butler’s KindredChapter 2: Phantasmic Midrashim: The Midrashic Roots of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is IlluminatedChapter 3: A Phantasmic Tribalography: The Case of LeAnne Howe’s Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball StoryChapter 4: Projecting the PhantasmicConclusion: The Call to Infinite Responsibility

Stella Setka is associate professor of English at West Los Angeles College.

Empathy and the Phantasmic in Ethnic American Trauma Narratives is a smart and timely book that raises vital questions about the haunting effects of traumatic memory on cultures and individuals. In her sensitive reading of multi-ethnic, cross-cultural representations of the 'other' in literature and film, Setka makes claims for the ways in which inherited trauma and legacies of rupture, disruption, and loss transcend temporality, collapsing past, present, and future. This is an important book that comes at a critical time in global history, one in which social and political institutions bear the weight of competing traumatic histories. In unpacking the layers of memory and trauma, Setka ultimately makes imperative the capacity for empathy and for ethical witnessing.

• Introduction: Phantasmic Trauma NarrativesChapter 1: Phantasmic Africanisms: Igbo Cosmology in Octavia Butler’s KindredChapter 2: Phantasmic Midrashim: The Midrashic Roots of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is IlluminatedChapter 3: A Phantasmic Tribalography: The Case of LeAnne Howe’s Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball StoryChapter 4: Projecting the PhantasmicConclusion: The Call to Infinite Responsibility

Stella Setka is associate professor of English at West Los Angeles College.

Empathy and the Phantasmic in Ethnic American Trauma Narratives is a smart and timely book that raises vital questions about the haunting effects of traumatic memory on cultures and individuals. In her sensitive reading of multi-ethnic, cross-cultural representations of the 'other' in literature and film, Setka makes claims for the ways in which inherited trauma and legacies of rupture, disruption, and loss transcend temporality, collapsing past, present, and future. This is an important book that comes at a critical time in global history, one in which social and political institutions bear the weight of competing traumatic histories. In unpacking the layers of memory and trauma, Setka ultimately makes imperative the capacity for empathy and for ethical witnessing.

• Introduction: Phantasmic Trauma NarrativesChapter 1: Phantasmic Africanisms: Igbo Cosmology in Octavia Butler’s KindredChapter 2: Phantasmic Midrashim: The Midrashic Roots of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is IlluminatedChapter 3: A Phantasmic Tribalography: The Case of LeAnne Howe’s Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball StoryChapter 4: Projecting the PhantasmicConclusion: The Call to Infinite Responsibility