Description
Book SynopsisArgues for the importance of recognizing - and archiving - accounts of trauma that belong as much to the ordinary and everyday as to the domain of catastrophe. This title contends that the field of trauma studies, limited by too strict a division between the public and the private, has overlooked the experiences of women and queers.
Trade Review“
An Archive of Feelings makes an extremely important contribution to queer and feminist cultural studies by insisting upon the public, and indeed national, dimensions of sexual trauma. Ann Cvetkovich's book argues for the productive rather than repressive power of trauma and accounts for its role in the production of queer identities and queer counter publics. This is queer cultural studies at its finest!”—Judith Halberstam, author of
Female Masculinity”Avoiding bullshit moralism and sentimentality, Ann Cvetkovich breathes new life into the study of trauma. This is the book I looked for in so many libraries and bookstores and never found. It is not only brilliant but totally necessary.”—Kathleen Hanna of the band Le Tigre
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. The Everyday Life of Queer Trauma 15
2. Trauma and Touch: Butch-Femme Sexualities 49
3. Sexual Trauma/Queer Memory: Incest, Lesbianism, and Therapeutic Culture 83
4. Transnational Trauma and Queer Diasporic Publics 118
5. AIDS Activism and Public Feelings: Documenting ACT UP’s Lesbians 156
6. Legacies of Trauma, Legacies of Activism: Mourning and Military Revisited 205
7. In the Archive of Lesbian Feelings 239
Epilogue 273
Appendix: A Note on Interviews 289
Notes 291
Filmography 327
Bibliography 329
Index 345
