The Histories of Violence Collective is a
dynamic, interdisciplinary, and pan-institutional intellectual home for
scholars who center violence as a topic of study. Defined by particular
narrative, archival, and pedagogical questions, emerging studies of violence
constitute a new movement within History, American Studies, Literary Studies,
and related fields. We draw on a long genealogy of work in trauma studies and
psychoanalysis; Latin American cultural studies; postcolonial studies; women and
gender studies; and critical race theory. While recognizing the singularity,
silences, non-linear nature, and in/visibility of violent experience, we
propose a new turn that critically engages the witnesses, survivors, and
descendants of violence. We seek to codify our own archival processes—defined
as they are by valences of affect ranging from grief, to fear, to anger—and to
communalize the experience of research and writing in Histories of Violence. We
also emphasize the ethical imperatives of writing and teaching these kinds of
stories, focusing on advocacy for their inclusion in public humanities
projects, promoting their presence in digital media, and creating discussions
about their responsible telling.
Narrative
• The experience of violence has a
distinct narrative behavior, breaking the life story inexorably into before and
after and creating silences, hauntings, non-linear stories, and narratives both
submerged and invisible. Histories of Violence can and should upset previous
understandings.
Archive
• Understanding violence as a
methodology, and not just a subject, of historical inquiry proposes that no
archive is stable, and that archival absences, gaps, and erasures have meaning
and material consequence. We propose that these silences constitute a major
part of our historical archive. We therefore advocate an interdisciplinary
approach that draws on History, Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, Literary
Criticism, and other fields.
Pedagogy
• The political, ethical, and moral
imperative of telling Histories of Violence requires attention to audience,
form, and circulation. For this reason, we are particularly interested in
stories of violence that reveal systemic inequality and structural power. The
Histories of Violence Collective works towards a new understanding of United
States history and culture, one that recognizes both the narration and omission
of violence in constructing national narratives. While we emphasize the United
States as our opening site of analysis, we advocate a transnational approach
that allows for the discussion of violence around the world, and renders
legible the long and broad circulations of state violence.