Trauma in American Popular Culture and Cult Texts, 1980-2020

This book examines trauma in late twentieth- and twenty-first century American popular culture.
Although trauma is predominantly associated with high culture, this project shows how popular culture has become the most productive and innovative area of trauma representation in America.

This book examines trauma in late twentieth- and twenty-first century American popular culture. Trauma has become a central paradigm for reading contemporary American culture. Since the early 1980s, an extensive range of genres increasingly feature traumatised protagonists and traumatic events. From traumatised superheroes in Hollywood blockbusters to apocalyptic-themed television series, trauma narratives abound.

Although trauma is predominantly associated with high culture, this project shows how popular culture has become the most productive and innovative area of trauma representation in America. Examining film, television, animation, video games and cult texts, this book develops a series of original paradigms through which to understand trauma in popular culture. These include: popular trauma texts’ engagement with postmodern perspectives, formal techniques termed ‘competitive narration’, ‘polynarration’ and ‘sceptical scriptotherapy’, and perpetrator trauma in metafictional games.

‘Dr Sean Travers is an independent scholar based in Cork, Ireland. She obtained her PhD in University College Cork and has published several articles about trauma, popular culture, postmodernism, and American literature and culture.’