Analyze violence, power, and obsessions through the lens of trauma regarding immigration, migrations, current border realities and criminality in general. How have these elements been reflected in Isabel Allendes novel, as well as potentially, in the development of her various characters and their struggles. Trauma has been defined in many ways. Most times, however, there is a strong indication toward and/or direct involvement with a disturbing event. This occurrence leads to an emotional response after the event, causing shock and often long-term neuroses, psychologically strained relationships, and/or physical ailments such as, headaches, nausea, sleep disruption, and physical/psychological pain. The novel by Isabel Allende offers instances and episodes which might be related, directly or indirectly, to this area of trauma. Family separations, children being sent to travel alone, treatment by coyotes regarding people attempting to cross borders, immigration and migration practices, indescribable sufferings of people by government officials, massacres and killings, dictatorships, gangs etc. all have different traumatic associations. Allende writes about these aspects when she says, How important was it to share ones pain and discover that others too had their fair share of it too, that lives are often alike and feelings similar. This is strangely important considering the current environment. The pandemic which we are still living through and experiencing in diverse ways, may also be associated with trauma. How have your own personal experiences permitted you in some way to understand some of Allendes thoughts more deeply as well as those pertaining to her characters? The Course Description: The 19th and 20th centuries have seen events reflecting colonialism, post colonialism, totalitarianism, torture and killing. Now the 21st century is emerging and taking shape. Many social groups labor toward democracy and equality, doing this amidst struggles of illegality and criminality. If these criminal elements continue to show dominance, the following questions are going to prevail. How does violent crime appear in, mix with, match or transcend different regions and nation states? How does global power produce disturbing preoccupations and unhealthy motivations for successful 21st century living? Where are society, politics, religion, gangs, drugs, immigration, literature, and corporate greed located in this worldwide arena? Where is the murky line drawn between order and chaos, legal and illegal, culture and identity? This course will attempt to answer all these varied questions. Through a variety of books and texts, it will enter into this dark world, where gangs, organized crime, trafficking, terror networks and national/international security systems intertwine, making it almost impossible for people of whatever country to hide from the giant shadow of criminal activity. Using this course description, we can see how Allendes greater truth is most likely linked in many ways to the concept of trauma. Trauma is an un-representable event which causes irreversible damage to the psyche producing forms of psychological dissociation and problems of remembering. This suffering may originate from an external source, individual perpetrator, and/or collective social practices. Traumatic experiences trigger disruptions in an affected individuals consciousness. The values attached to this traumatic experience are influenced by a variety of individual and cultural factors that change over time. Since trauma is not locatable in only the violent or original event of an individuals past, it returns to haunt the survivor in various repressive and repetitive ways. Its connections to other events spread out much farther than just the persons experiential field. Trauma may be aligned with cultural or historical happenings, which function as stress factors, capable of initiating bouts of dissociative disorders. Trauma and the surrounding reasons for it enter the areas of human rights, immigration and immigrants, migrations and migrants, personhood, and indirectly globalization and criminality. One significant aspect linking this list of areas to one another is the fact that they all involve real people with real lives. These lives are filled with joys and sorrows, fears, strengths, and loves and losses; in other words, they are examples of human beings with stories, encompassing past struggles, present uncertainties, and doubtful futures. The people in these situations have been trapped in different crises, whose common outcome has been one composed of migratory routes and global movements. That is why this book is so important. Local criminality becomes obsessively global very quickly.
