Literature,trauma and the African moral imagination

Trauma theory claims to represent a ‘new mode of reading and of listening’, but its Eurocentric roots lead to the question of whether or not this approach is relevant in postcolonial contexts. This essay makes the case that engaging trauma theory through African literatures is in fact a productive exercise, mostly because of what it does for the former. African social thought, expressed through its writers and critics, allows us to refine and address crucial problems in trauma theory, including questions about the representation of trauma and strategies for trauma healing. African writers' deployment of images such as the railroad, which is closely linked with discourses of trauma and of modernism, illustrates how their works can reframe trauma studies from an African perspective. An appreciation of the continent's traumatogenic contexts, of writers' cultural resources and strategies for speaking to those contexts, and of the intrinsically transformational impulse of the African moral imagination, suggests that African literatures are grounded in the types of imaginative ‘re-membering practice[s]’ that promote recovery and healing from the destructive effects of trauma.     

A multidisciplinary investigation of chronic animal abuse: Collaboration between veterinary forensics and forensic anthropology

An unknown juvenile female mixed breed dog was found non‐ambulatory on a dead‐end street in an urban setting adjacent to a public park. During initial veterinary examination, she was assessed to have untreatable injuries and was humanely euthanized. The forensic veterinarian requested consultation from a forensic anthropologist to assist with documenting antemortem skeletal trauma. Analyses of skeletal tissues indicated numerous injuries in various stages of healing diagnostic of non‐accidental injuries. Veterinary forensic cases may benefit from collaborative analysis of bony remains by forensic anthropologists.     

外伤性硬脑膜下积液者90项症状自评量表评分分析

目的探讨外伤性硬脑膜下积液者的90项症状自评量表(Symptom Check List-90,SCL-90)分值变化的影响因素。方法选取皖南医学院司法鉴定中心2007—2018年受理的142例外伤性硬脑膜下积液的被鉴定人进行SCL-90测试,分析测得SCL-90得分与全国常模的差异,以及性别、年龄、文化程度、积液范围及部位对SCL-90分值的影响。结果外伤性硬脑膜下积液SCL-90的躯体化、人际敏感、抑郁、焦虑、敌对、恐怖、偏执、精神病性因子分值及总均分与全国常模比较,差异有统计学意义(P<0.05),男女性之间抑郁和敌对因子分值差异有统计学意义(P<0.05),不同年龄段间强迫、焦虑、恐怖因子分值及总均分差异有统计学意义(P<0.05),不同受教育程度人群中敌对、偏执和精神病性因子分值差异有统计学意义(P<0.05),单部位、双部位与多部位间抑郁、焦虑、敌对、恐怖因子分值及总均分差异有统计学意义(P<0.05),左脑区、双脑区与右脑区相比躯体化、抑郁、焦虑因子分值及总均分差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论外伤性硬脑膜下积液可引起一定的精神心理变化,该变化与蛛网膜破裂的原发伤以及硬脑膜下积液范围和部位相关,进行精神心理症状评估时应注意上述因素的影响。     

闺媛与国事:戊戌六君子遗孀的生命际遇

戊戌六君子死难以后,身后未亡人的故事,长期以来只是模糊的身影,少有研究者集中关注。在慷慨壮烈的志士书写背后,她们不同的人生际遇和命运抉择,集中体现了新旧道德之间的角力以及变局时代"贤媛"角色的艰难转型。借助报刊、文集、日记、年谱、地方志、回忆录等材料返回历史现场,在公众目光和新闻舆论之外,钩沉六君子遗孀们的个体生命历程,梳理这些湮没在百年时光中的女性故事,能够发掘清季闺媛与国事之间的历史张力,展现文本背后的创伤书写与历史记忆。     

Building in the Imagin(ed)(n)ation: An Essay Inspired by W.B. Yeats' – ``Meditations in Time of Civil War'

Ireland is a country haunted by a past which refuses to remain buried. This past irrupts and interupts in texts as diverse as the Irish Constitution and the poems of W.B. Yeats. This piece ruminates on the representation of the state's violent past in legal texts and in the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Paul Muldoon and attempts to draw links between the personal and the political narration of violence. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cultural Trauma as a Potential Symbolic Boundary

Using the case of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma in the Jewish-Israeli context, some insights are suggested as to the ways younger members of collectives view cultural trauma as a symbolic boundary. The findings obtained from three groups of students, each expressing their views on a different facet of the Holocaust as a symbolic boundary, suggest that the major contributing factor that turns cultural trauma into a symbolic boundary is the way in which members of the collective categorize the modes through which others, within and outside the collective, relate to that cultural trauma.

Provider Perspectives on Sex Trafficking: Victim Pathways,Service Needs, & Blurred Boundaries

This study examines service providers’ perspectives on survivors of trafficking using a purposeful sample of professionals specializing in intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and child maltreatment. Entry points into trafficking included recruitment by Romeo pimps, survival sex, kidnapping, and deceptive offers of employment. Service needs of survivors were described as more extreme and enduring than those of other types of victims served, with particular needs in long-term housing, health and mental health, substance use treatment, legal aid, and employment assistance. An overarching issue involved survivors’ dual identities as both victims and offenders, including self-identification and understanding/treatment by human service providers and law enforcement officers.     

Unacademic academics: Holocaust deniers and trivializers in post-Communist Romania

The Romanian Academy (and much of the country's historical establishment) is packed with Holocaust deniers and trivializers, many of whom indulge in Holocaust obfuscation against the background of the post-Communist “competitive martyrdom” between the victims of the Holocaust and the Gulag. Quite a few of these deniers and trivializers are also former secret police informers. On closer examination, however, it turns out that explaining the reluctance to face the country's “dark past” as being the independent variable resultant of the post “Romanianization” of the Communist Party and its Securitate is a partial explanation at best. A substantially more convincing one might be provided by scrutinizing the phenomenon as the product of post-mnemonic cultural traumas.     

Neville Bolt. The Violent Image: Insurgent Propaganda and the New Revolutionaries.

This article examines key setting events and personal factors that are associated with support for either non-violent activism or violent activism among Somali refugee young adults in the United States. Specifically, this article examines the associations of trauma, stress, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), posttraumatic growth (PTG), strength of social bonds, and attitudes towards legal and non-violent vs. illegal and violent activism. Structured interviews were conducted with a sample of Somali refugee males ages 18–25 living in the northeastern United States (N = 79). Data were analyzed using multiple linear regressions and path analysis. Greater exposure to personal trauma was associated with greater openness to illegal and violent activism. PTSD symptoms mediated this association. Strong social bonds to both community and society moderated this association, with trauma being more strongly associated with openness to illegal and violent activism among those who reported weaker social bonds. Greater exposure to trauma, PTG, and stronger social bonds were all associated with greater openness to legal non-violent activism.     

Sudden Unexpected Death due to Chiari Type I Malformation in a Road Accident Case

This case concerns a sudden death of a patient with Chiari I malformation. A 17‐year‐old female was seen unconscious then fell off a motorbike during the vehicle acceleration. The girl was confirmed dead on the way to hospital, being previously asymptomatic and with a clean medical record. Autopsy findings showed an extremely extra‐long cerebellar tonsillar herniation in the left side and unexplained multiple small cavities in cerebral hemispheres. Microscopic findings revealed loss and abnormal migration of the Purkinje cells, as well as capillary congestion in the herniated tonsil. The cause and mechanisms of this sudden death are considered as the cardiopulmonary dysfunction and arrest resulted from compression of the medulla and cervical cord, which was induced by both the positional insult and minor head trauma. In addition, this study stresses the importance of cervical cord examination in the case of unexpected sudden death following road accidents.