Contact & About

Welcome to the Interdisciplinary workshop Memory, Trauma and Human Rights at the Crossroads of Arts and Sciences, made possible with the generous support of the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop (College of Liberal Arts), the Institute of Advanced Study Collaborative and the Imagine Fund!

This project brings together team members from the University, community, and research institutions abroad to better understand the impacts of traumatic memory upon individuals and societies and to critically engage the issues of how we come to terms with and heal from trauma, seek accountability for human rights abuses that led to severe trauma, and mitigate future traumatization. We seek to explore the long-term effects of traumatic experiences as varied as war and dictatorship, terrorist attacks and state terrorism, genocide, captivity, and sexual abuse. We also seek to confront the complexities of testimonial narratives and of memory itself. Without memory, no testimony is possible, the right to truth may be denied, and the justice unobtainable

We believe that a full understanding of trauma and its implications in modern society must address both its individual and social dimensions, and place 1) therapeutic and artistic work, 2) critical cultural analysis and scientific modelling/experimentation, and 3) sociological as well as historical study and medical practice in dialogue. The workshop explores how a more interdisciplinary understanding of memory and trauma can illuminate the pathways between artistic/literary production and healing.

The humanities deepen and expand the ways to approach the interstices that inhabit the narratives of traumatic events, the ontology of the post-traumatic subject, and the rethinking of the witnessing of trauma. The humanities, called to explore and explain the human condition, must face the challenge of understanding and treating trauma as one of the foremost experiences in which that very condition is most radically called into question.

For inquiries, please send us an email at: memteam@umn.edu

Project Team

Principal Investigators

Brian Engdahl

William L. Anderson Chair in PTSD Research

Adjunct and Research Professor in Neuroscience (Medical School), Psychology, & Cognitive Sciences (CLA), UMN

Clinician Investigator: Minneapolis VA Health Care System

engda002@umn.edu

Ofelia Ferrán

Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, CLA, UMN

Affiliated with Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies

ferra007@umn.edu

Ana Forcinito

Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair

Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, CLA, UMN

Affiliated with Human Rights Program, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, Interdisciplinary Center for Global Change, Moving Image Studies Graduate Minor

aforcini@umn.edu

Team Members

Alejandro Baer

Stephen C. Feinstein Chair; Associate Professor, Sociology; Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, UofM

Claudia Bacci

University of Buenos Aires/ National University of La Plata, Argentina

Nora Dominguez

University of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Janet Dubinsky

Professor, Neuroscience, Medical School, UofM

Jan Estep

Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in Liberal Arts, Art Department, CLA, UofM

Francisco Ferrándiz

Researcher, Cultural Anthropology; Director of the Research Group on Politics of Memory, Memories of Violence at the Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain

Ana Paula Ferreira

Samuel Russell Chair in the Humanities; Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, CLA, UofM

Rosa E. García-Peltoniemi

Senior Consulting Clinician, Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul, MN

Patrick McNamara

Associate Professor, History, CLA, UofM

Leslie Morris

Associate Professor, German, Scandinavian and Dutch, CLA, UofM

Alejandra Oberti

National University of La Plata/ Memoria Abierta, Argentina

EmmaLee Pallai

Education Manager, Community University Health Care Center, UofM

Francesc Torres

Multimedia artist

María Verónica Svetaz

Aqui Para Ti/Here for you, Medical DirectorAssistant Professor UofM

Monica Szurmuk

CONICET/ University of Buenos Aires

Bill Viestenz

Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies/Global Studies, CLA, UofM

Elizabeth Wieling

Associate Professor, Family Social Science, CEHD, UofM

Yasuko Kase

Associate Professor, Languages and Literatures/Global and Regional Studies, University of Ryukyus, Japan.