Aftermaths
Christine Simokaitis and Olivia Cronk are the faculty sponsors of this project.
Abstract
“Aftermaths” will be a creative non-fiction examination of the twin survivorhoods of sexual and domestic violence. Utilizing the hybrid-form genre, I intend to explore the various ripples that these traumas have sent rolling out through my life. Hybrid forms allow for the flexibility to not only convey meaning, but also to communicate the emotional experience in an associative, semiotic mode. Taking inspiration from the works of Gertrude Stein, Maggie Nelson, Rebecca Brown, Virginia Woolf, and Julia Kristeva, and by playing with the “how” of writing along with the “why,” I will use hybrid and experimental forms to access the recursive nature of trauma in a unique way that exhibits the tendency towards self-doubt so common to being a survivor, without denying or negating anything written. Using varied forms, I intend to represent the way that the human brain wreaks havoc upon the legibility of even the same, singular traumatic event, and the manner in which, to a psyche wrestling with wholeness in the face of shattering trauma, the most mundane matters send the mind spiraling into recursivity. Similarly, I plan to play with time to enact the telescopic effect of trauma and the way that it alternately collapses the passage of time, sending the survivor hurtling back to the worst moments of their life, and lingers, causing those same moments to stretch out and expand to monstrous proportions. Concurrently, and in conversation with #MeToo and #TimesUp, I envision aspects of this work functioning as declarative reclamation and manifesto, delineating the spaces where survivors will refuse to allow their traumatizers to enter and enact further violence. I am hopeful that the hybrid form of my work will give me room to represent the diaspora of survivors of trauma and sexual trauma, rather than the limitations and dangers of a single narrative, even though the experiences and their associated dimensions belong solely to me. This piece, born in Christine Simokaitis’s Creative Non-Fictions I and II, in Olivia Cronk’s Hybrid Forms and Creative Writing for the Critical Writer, and refined in the Summer Creative Writing Institute, is rooted in the Creative Writing minor of the English Department.
Aftermaths
“Aftermaths” will be a creative non-fiction examination of the twin survivorhoods of sexual and domestic violence. Utilizing the hybrid-form genre, I intend to explore the various ripples that these traumas have sent rolling out through my life. Hybrid forms allow for the flexibility to not only convey meaning, but also to communicate the emotional experience in an associative, semiotic mode. Taking inspiration from the works of Gertrude Stein, Maggie Nelson, Rebecca Brown, Virginia Woolf, and Julia Kristeva, and by playing with the “how” of writing along with the “why,” I will use hybrid and experimental forms to access the recursive nature of trauma in a unique way that exhibits the tendency towards self-doubt so common to being a survivor, without denying or negating anything written. Using varied forms, I intend to represent the way that the human brain wreaks havoc upon the legibility of even the same, singular traumatic event, and the manner in which, to a psyche wrestling with wholeness in the face of shattering trauma, the most mundane matters send the mind spiraling into recursivity. Similarly, I plan to play with time to enact the telescopic effect of trauma and the way that it alternately collapses the passage of time, sending the survivor hurtling back to the worst moments of their life, and lingers, causing those same moments to stretch out and expand to monstrous proportions. Concurrently, and in conversation with #MeToo and #TimesUp, I envision aspects of this work functioning as declarative reclamation and manifesto, delineating the spaces where survivors will refuse to allow their traumatizers to enter and enact further violence. I am hopeful that the hybrid form of my work will give me room to represent the diaspora of survivors of trauma and sexual trauma, rather than the limitations and dangers of a single narrative, even though the experiences and their associated dimensions belong solely to me. This piece, born in Christine Simokaitis’s Creative Non-Fictions I and II, in Olivia Cronk’s Hybrid Forms and Creative Writing for the Critical Writer, and refined in the Summer Creative Writing Institute, is rooted in the Creative Writing minor of the English Department.