Telling Suffering: Pain, Trouble, Trauma, and Their Stories

Spring Colloquium 2006

Stories of suffering are incomparable. And yet, narratives as acts of representation do have commonalities. Any experience of suffering is always already shaped by pre-existing stories (cultural, familial, professional). These models are not inflexible templates, yet they are powerful. Further, narratives of suffering are subject to the conventions of genres and the discourse rules in effect in any particular storytelling context.

How do these acts of narration—by sufferers, professionals, and academics—influence what counts as “experience,” both in memory and in how those now suffering understand themselves and their situation?

FEATURING:

Arthur Frank, University of Calgary

Cheryl Mattingly, University of Southern California

Paul A. Komesaroff, Monash University, Melbourne

Jonathan Shay, author, Achilles in Vietnam

Papers from this colloquium are published in the Fall 2006 issue of The Hedgehog Review.