Date of Award
3-2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Organizational Unit
Joint Ph.D. Program in Study of Religion
First Advisor
Sandra Lee Dixon
Second Advisor
Ted Vial
Third Advisor
Thomas Nail
Keywords
Listening, Post-Heidegger, Trauma
Abstract
What is it to have a voice, to be heard? And how is this connected to the need to have someone listen? Through a close reading of Heidegger’s later works woven together with readings of Judith Butler, Jean Luc Marion, Michel Foucault, and Shoshana Felman, I explore a concept of Listening as it is connected to the event of our being, creating a theory of Listening that emphasizes what happens in the Listener as she Listens.
The concept of Listening is relied on, but under-considered, in both clinical and philosophical theories. In order to understand what it means to have a voice or to be heard in the aftermath of trauma, we need a more accurate and nuanced understanding of what happens when we Listen in the therapeutic setting, as well as more generally. Exploring the happening of Listening gives us an increased understanding of what Listening to trauma requires of the Listener as she addresses the unspeakableness of the survivors’ experiences.
By developing a new way of thinking about what happens in the Listener as she Listens, I make these two contributions: in Heideggerian studies I offer an application of Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, and in Trauma Studies, I offer a new way to view what a Listener does as she Listens.
Building on the practical emphasis in Trauma Studies on the importance of Listening, how to Listen, and in particular how to Listen in such a way as to not develop secondary post-traumatic stress as a Listener, I develop a new way of thinking about what it is that happens in the Listener as she listens to the traumatic, or more precisely, Listens to what is unspeakable in the trauma—that which makes it, by definition, traumatic.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Kathleen M. Douglass
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
en
File Size
275 pgs
Recommended Citation
Douglass, Kathleen M., "Being and Trauma: A Theory of Listening as a Dis/Appropriation of the Listener to the Call of the Unspeakable in Trauma" (2023). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2173.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2173
Copyright date
2023
Discipline
Philosophy, Counseling psychology, Therapy
Included in
Counseling Psychology Commons, Other Philosophy Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons