Multidirectional Memory and the Retrofitting of Trauma in Pat Barker and W. G. Sebald

This project examines the articulation of traumatic memory in contemporary literature which retrofits current definitions of trauma to twentieth-century wars. Drawing on the conceptual model for thinking across traumatic histories developed by Michael Rothberg, it seeks a fuller understanding of the ways in which representations of traumatic memories circulate and interact in the work of the canonical trauma writers Pat Barker en W. G. Sebald.