Blunt Traumas: Negotiating Suffering and Death

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2016. From the ridicule of Emo culture on YouTube to the minute joys of the Happy Hour Trolley in an Australian palliative care setting, responses to suffering and death range from avoidance to eradication. Blunt Traumas thoughtfully engages these topics with compassion and brutal honesty. Contributors across the spectrum of professions using a variety of methodologies, including case studies, fieldwork, systematic philosophy, and historical and textual analysis all respond to the orienting question: 'How does culture impact, co-create, and/or produce suffering?' Their inter- and multi-disciplinary perspectives are divided into two sections. The first, 'Public Perceptions of Death, Dying, and Suffering' closely examines human interactions with and performance of technologies of suffering from wireless to religious, dead baby bloggers to wounded warriors. The second half of the book focuses on the 'The Sufferer's Right to Choose', whether that concerns end-of-life decisions, medical technologies, or narratives of self. Together, these chapters provide greater intelligibility on and provocative discussions about the oft ignored or 'buried' discourses of suffering and dying.