Terrorizing Images in Literature of Trauma (TILT)

Dina Abazovic, Charles Armstrong, Unni Langås

The project’s object of study is literary representation of terrorizing images, i.e., verbally described mental and visual images, linked to political conflict and trauma. The goal of the project is to increase current knowledge of cultural constructions of emergency, with regard to the complex implementation of image descriptions in contemporary literature. Literature’s epistemological contribution to a more profound reflection on individual and collective self-understanding, as well as cultural identity and political processes, will be underscored. Since the imagery of contemporary literature is strongly marked by the visual multiplicity of today’s digital media, in addition to changes in public media, the project will expand the remit of literary theory, developing its concepts and interpretive methodology in the process. A main comparative concern will be to analyze the literary image as an agent in situations of conflict and war, whereby it will be explored in its performative structures and policy-constructing capacity.