MEDIA CONTACT:
Polly Burks, 561-297-2595,
pburks@fau.edu

BOCA RATON, FL (March 6, 2006) - Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies will host a symposium entitled “Post-Trauma: Violence, Trauma and Moral Repair” beginning on Thursday, March 16 through Saturday, March 18 on FAU’s Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The symposium will feature a range of different perspectives on the consequences of traumatic events such as violence and tragedy. Admission is free.

The symposium will begin with a film screening on Thursday, March 16 at 7 p.m. in General Classrooms South, Room 252. Mary Patten, director and associate professor of Film, Video and New Media at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, will screen some of her works which examine the representation of tragedy in the media.

On Friday, March 17 at 9:30 a.m., Susan Brison, associate professor of philosophy at Dartmouth College, will present the lecture “Trauma, Embodied Selves and Narrative Repair.” The lecture will take place in the Senate Chambers of FAU’s University Center. Brison, who wrote a book with this same title, will look at personal trauma and response, drawing on her own experience as a survivor of violent sexual assault. Following McCarthy’s speech, Anna McCarthy, associate professor of cinema studies at New York University, will present the lecture “Random One: Aleatory Citizens and the Neoliberal Theater of Suffering.” The lecture will examine how trauma is portrayed in the media. McCarthy is author of “Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space” and coeditor, with Nick Couldry, of “MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age.” Her essays on trauma as portrayed in television and other media have appeared in several anthologies and journals.

On Saturday, March 18 at 9:30 a.m., Teresa de Lauretis, professor of the history of consciousness at the University of California in Santa Cruz, California, will present “Reflections for the End of a Century.” This lecture will take place in the Majestic Palm Room. De Lauretis will look at the history of trauma both in the United States and abroad. Born and educated in Italy, she has taught at several American universities and has held visiting professorships in Canada, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. De Lauretis is also the author of numerous essays and books on literature, film, semiotics and feminist theory. Her works have been translated into 14 other languages.

The Post-Trauma symposium is sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. For further information, call 561-297-0155.

-FAU-