“What does it mean to be traumatized?”
This question, posed by Vinita Quinones, a poet and ASU social justice graduate student, to dozens of representatives of universities nationwide, summarizes an aspect of a conference held on the West campus.
The New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences kicked off its New Approaches to Trauma conference Thursday, outlining mental health studies related to trauma.
The conference will run until Oct. 9 and concludes with a panel discussion on immigration and trauma in Maricopa County. The discussion will focus on how a Phoenix family dealt with the trauma of immigration.
This is the first time the school has held an event like this, but officials from the New College indicated that it would be ideal if the event became an annual affair.
According to the conference’s website, trauma studies focus on how individuals react and cope with intense situations, which range from personal situations such as domestic violence to global issues like war and forced migrations.
The event will feature ASU students and professors, along with professors from universities across the country, presenting both research and art related to the field.
The conference represents a larger commitment at the University to connect knowledge and research to action, said Elizabeth Langland, dean of the New College.
She added that the work combines multiple fields of discourse, which make it key to the University’s goal.
“The interdisciplinary depth and breadth make this a signature event at ASU,” Langland said.
This connection across disciplines was strongly encouraged by Dan Morrison, a sociology graduate student at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
Morrison, using the example of connecting trauma studies with disability studies, said multiple backgrounds bring different ways of looking at the same problem, which deepens the collective knowledge of that problem.
“A focus on the collective allows us to use different lenses,” Morrison said.
Keynote speaker Maurice Stevens, a comparative studies professor at Ohio State University, said the collaboration must not only exist among studies, but also across multiple universities, saying the attendees of the event must work to create a community based around thinking, learning and action.
He added that it is important that research and action don’t exist separately, but must influence each other throughout the process.
“It’s not about just making a theory,” Stevens said. “Trauma calls for relief.”
Morrison furthered the concept that action is just as important as the mental aspect of trauma, especially in disability research.
He added that his research would benefit if it focused as much on the causes of trauma, such as the actual physical harm, as it did on the mental reactions.
Morrison’s research focuses heavily on victims of brain trauma that have had metallic implants placed into their brain to try to mask problems in their cognitive process.
He investigates how they cope and respond to needing a device to “appear normal.”
Reach the reporter at Michael.reppenhagen@asu.edu
