The IMPAC-Connecticut State University
Young Writers Competition
THE NEW CONNECTICUT REVIEW
Headed Your Way
The Spring 2006 issue of Connecticut Review is now out.
Here are some snapshots of what's inside:
A special section on the important new academic subject of trauma.
The section includes interviews, articles, and essays by prominent
researchers and thinkers in this field as well as trauma-related
stories, poetry and photos by a Pulitzer prize-winning photographer.
Also featured are pieces by CSU, and IMPAC-CSU award winning
university and high school students and a frighteningly familiar and
funny one-act play about marriage.
Here's a closer look:
* Aimee Pozorski introduces the special section on trauma
studies, presenting it as a field that borrows from literary theory,
psychoanalysis, and psychiatry to articulate human and artistic
responses to unexpected tragedy.
* An essay by and an interview with Cathy Caruth, widely
acknowledged to be the founder of the field of trauma studies. In
"Long Vietnam" Caruth finds that the Vietnam War, whose
decision-making process was hidden from the public, engendered a
resistance to the war that forced the public and veterans alike to
confront the reality of post traumatic stress.
* David Leeson provides haunting photographs that image trauma.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his photographs of the Iraq
war, Leeson is known world-wide for his powerful work in war and
natural disaster photojournalism. Less well known, and also featured
in this issue, is his astonishingly serene work in nature
photography. These photos function for him as a therapeutic
counter-balance to his images of trauma.
* Both sets of Natalie Friedman's grandparents survived
Hitler's concentration camps. Friedman's essay addresses her
struggle to keep alive the 'true' story of their experience. She
discusses her fear of presenting their story to the world, and the
emotional trauma she has experienced as a grandchild of survivors.
* Poems by Martha Serpas probe disaster, trauma, and memory.
* Pamela Leck, psychologist in the Program for Anxiety and
Traumatic Stress Studies at Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York
City, offers an essay that is a personal reflection on the challenges
involved in treating a firefighter who was involved in 9/11.
* Nicole Simek's "Pierre Bourdieu and the Subject of Trauma"
argues that Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, and in
particular his theorization of habitus, can help explain how
historical traumas such as racism are reproduced throughout the
generations.
* Stephanie Cherolis offers insight into the wrenching
testimonies to be found in the Yale Holocaust Video Archive: an
overview of the archive as a whole in addition to a close examination
of one survivor's poignant testimony.
* A short story by R. Clifton Spargo on the devastating
aftermath of a rape upon a relationship.
* Counterbalancing and complementing the trauma section Robert
Philen's essay, "The Stores We (Don't) Tell," discusses how telling
stories sometimes has unintended consequences. Included here is
WestConn's English Major Lorien Crowe's east meets west encounter
entitled "Cowboys and Indians."
* A translation of Yolada Pallin's play Honeymoon is a highly
readable play-form exploration of the hidden themes of marital love.
* Lorien Crow, WestConn literature major and CSU fiction award
winner, describes an east meets the American west encounter entitled
"Cowboys and Indians." The cowboys and Indians are everywhere, she
discovers.
To subscribe to Connecticut Review and make other creative
connections visit our new website at www.connecticutreview.com
John Briggs, Ph.D.
CSU Distinguished Professor
Senior Editor, Connecticut Review
Professor, Professional Writing Coordinator
Department of English Language,
Comparative Literature and Writing
Western Connecticut State University
Danbury, CT 06810
Send manuscripts to:
John Briggs, Senior Editor
Connecticut Review
Connecticut State University System
39 Woodland Street
Hartford, CT 06105-2337