Module Directory

What is "trauma"? How and why has it become an emblem of suffering in contemporary societies?

This module traces the social and medical history of trauma from 1900, through the "invention" of PTSD in the 1970s, to the present. It examines the social changes that have put trauma on the map, and how understandings of trauma reflect the social norms of their time.

The module covers two related themes:

1. The role of psychology in military conflict during the twentieth century


2. The impact of social movements from the 1960s onwards concerned with victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, racial injustice, and colonial trauma

The First half of the module will cover the World Wars, the Holocaust, and the medical and social legacies of the Vietnam War. In the second half we will examine the emergence of PTSD and its implications, sexual trauma, trauma in the Global South, and the politics of memorialising trauma.

By investigating the history of military psychiatry alongside victim-centred social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the module develops a critical understanding of trauma culture and medicalisation.

The aims of this module are to:

• Examine how medical understandings of trauma reflect the social norms of their time.


• Consider the discovery of shell shock in the First World War through to the expansion of the categories of trauma with the emergence of PTSD in the 1990s.


• Develop a critical understanding of trauma culture in in the age of trigger warnings.

By the end of this module, students are expected to be able to:

1. Knowledge of global conflicts across the twentieth century and their psychological impact on participants and later generations.


2. A critical understanding of trauma concepts past and present, and how these change over time (from hysteria and “soldier’s heart” to shell shock and PTSD).


3. The ability to analyse and interpret testimonies of trauma (including novels, memoirs, official sources, oral testimony, and film) and place them in historical and social context.

This module draws on approaches from the sociology of medicine and the history of modern warfare to examine how medical understandings of trauma reflect the social norms of their time. Beginning with the late nineteenth century and cases of hysteria, the module considers the discovery of ‘shell-shock’ in the First World War and concludes with Gulf War Syndrome and the expansion of PTSD in the 1990s. The therapeutic industries of today, it could be argued, are the children of war. Investigating the history of military psychiatry alongside representations of war trauma in art, film, and personal testimony, the module develops a critical understanding of trauma culture in ‘the age of catastrophe’.

Please view the Introduction video to The Age of Trauma via Moodle.

This module will be delivered via:

• One 2-hour seminar each week.

Face-to-face attendance is expected.