Suffering and Salvation
Trauma and the Power of Wounds to Save Our World: A Reparative Read of Our Shared Humanity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jane Grovijahn
“Global Trauma is the voice of God calling to us.” (Langberg, 2011) Trauma, Langberg asserts, is perhaps the greatest mission field of the twenty-first century, remaining a place of enigma and urgency. The frequency and impact of trauma in our lives is no longer debated. In fact scholars now remind us that trauma has become a common feature of our contemporary lives whether we are speaking of genocidal violence or the dreary redundancy of sexual assaults. According to Dr. Diane Langberg, clinical psychologist and co-founder of A Place of Refuge, one in seven persons live with the searing mark of trauma. Given its normalcy, how can we create effective responses to the common presence of trauma in our public sphere in such a way to lessen its mark upon us and move forward into reparative strategies capable of carrying its immensity? Working from an interdisciplinary approach, I explore how scholars across the humanities represent a landscape of survival necessary for us to reclaim the luminescence of our shared humanity. Here we enter into what Mayra Rivera (2015) names the “generative capacities of the flesh,” binding us to wounds as spaces of possibility within redemptory reclamations.
Literature as a Device Alerting Humanity to Gender-based Violence as a Social Ill
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nompumelelo Zondi
The dialectic of gender and power relations are escalating and causing challenges in South Africa in particular and in Africa in general. The situation manifests through men becoming perpetrators of gender-based violence which knows no boundaries, even as it spills over to families as domestic violence. Embracing United Nation's International Human Rights for over two decades the South African government has endeavored to increase awareness of the negative impact of violence on women and children through 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women and Children. The main objective of the campaign is to mobilize all sectors of society to act against abuse and to protect all those who are vulnerable. Authors have also come on board by writing books to that effect. One such acclaimed Zulu writer, Maphumulo (2008) engages readers in the discourse through his award winning drama titled "Kudela Owaziyo" (Happy is the one who knows the end)
