The Beyond Trauma Conference (June 9, 10, & 11, 2025; Nice, France) aims to gather an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to share their research (ethnographies, theories, and clinical practice) on post-traumatic states from resistance and resilience to retribution and growth. More specifically, we propose to focus less on trauma and PTSD and more on modes of healing that so often involve the arts for trauma survivors. 

Additionally, this three-day event is inspired by the interdisciplinary work of Françoise Davoine, whose contributions have influenced our understanding of trauma and traumatism. We aim to honor her legacy by bringing together leaders who can engage with her signature concepts (on historical trauma, often passed down through generations; madness and dissociation; and breaking traumatic silence through wit) with the goal of amplifying conversations around modes of post-traumatic recovery and healing. By expanding upon these themes, we hope to create a rich, inclusive space for dialogue that advances both research and clinical practice in trauma studies.

The reasons behind this interdisciplinary and international conference are numerous, if not pressing. Most importantly, collective traumatic events define the lives of so many today, whether in the Middle East, Ukraine, or Sudan or for refugees and migrants across the globe. Ethnic persecution and cleansing are obviously not phenomena of the past; they are still the drum beat to which soldiers march and serve as alibi for political and territorial incursions. To study how individuals and communities have survived (or ''sub-vived'') psychologically these catastrophic collective events may very well enlighten scholars and clinicians studying and/or treating survivors today.

This conference also aims to put pressure on the multidisciplinary field of trauma studies and its emphasis on trauma itself. By emphasizing the concept of trauma, theorists in cultural trauma studies tend to overemphasize the notions of the unknown and ''unrepresentable" and a crisis of meaning often ensues. [1] Such a narrow perspective of a traumatic past might distract survivors from what can be reconstructed through creative mechanisms. Psychologist Richard Tedeschi and his colleagues voice a related concern and more explicitly: “[…] there has been almost no study of PTG [posttraumatic growth] in the humanities other than references to the concept of growth …” [2] Expanding upon this issue, psychiatrist Barbara Shapiro claims that, ''The psychoanalytic literature on resilience is relatively sparse'' [3], whereas neuro-psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik highlights an even more alarming concern about clinical practice: ''Le fait que la résilience n'ait pas été étudiée alors que tous les praticiens l'ont constatée en dit long sur notre culture […]" [4]  (The fact that resilience has not been studied even though clinicians have observed it says a lot about our culture.) Cyrulnik’s comment not only stresses that clinicians have neglected to focus on resilience, but it also intimates that they have often neglected to consider other cultural perspectives on post-traumatic states. Indeed, the cultural myopia defining trauma studies is another reason for organizing an international conference on beyond trauma. Numerous post-colonial theorists call attention to this trend, including Stef Craps, Gert Buelens, Irene Vissier, and Roger Kurtz.[5] [6] [7] Underscoring the consequences of this cultural myopia, Michael Rothberg argues: ''[…] as long as trauma studies forgoes comparative study and remains tied to a narrow Eurocentric framework, it distorts the histories it addresses (such as the Holocaust) and threatens to reproduce the very Eurocentrism that lies behind those histories.'' [8] In an attempt to respond to this list of issues defining trauma studies, conference organizers invite potential conference speakers and participants to offer interdisciplinary and global perspectives on mechanisms to stimulate more positive post-traumatic conditions from resistance, resilience, growth, retribution, remission, and even healing.

[1] DOMINICK LACAPRA, Writing History, Writing Trauma, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, p. 92.

[2] RICHARD TEDESCHI, JANE SHAKESPEARE-FINCH, KANAKO TAKU, and LAWRENCE G. CALHOUN, Posttraumatic Growth, New York, Routledge, 2018, p. 9.

[3] BARBARA SHAPIRO, ''Resilience, Sublimation, and Healing'' in Unbroken Soul: Tragedy, Trauma, and Resilience, edited by Henri Parens, Harold Blum, and Salman Akhtar, Lanham, MD, Jason Aronson, 2008, p. 119; pp. 118–128.

[4] BORIS CYRULNIK, Un Merveilleux malheur, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2002, loc. 139.

[5] See STEF CRAPS and GERT BUELENS, ''Introduction: Postcolonial Trauma Novels'', Studies in the Novel, 40, Spring–Summer 2008, pp. 1–12.

[6] See IRENE VISSIER, ''Trauma in Non-Western Contexts,'' in Trauma and Literature, edited by Roger Kurtz, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 124–139.

[7] See ROGER KURTZ, ''Introduction'' in Trauma and Literature, edited by Roger Kurtz, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 1–17.

[8] MICHAEL ROTHBERG, ''Decolonizing Trauma Studies: A Response'', Studies in the Novel, 40, 2008, p. 227, pp. 224–234.

 Françoise Davoine, Honoree

Françoise Davoine was awarded an Agrégation in Classics (French Literature, Latin and Greek) and a Doctorate in Sociology and then trained and practiced as a psychoanalyst for more than 30 years in public psychiatric hospitals in France. Simultaneously, she taught at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and with her late husband, Jean-Max Gaudillière, ran a seminar on "Madness and the Social Link", which explores the ruptures of social bonds. Davoine’s clinical practice has centered on patients suffering from extreme forms of trauma, especially those with histories defined by political violence and wars. She upholds that unresolved historical trauma, often passed down through generations, can trigger madness and other psychic troubles. Davoine has authored and/or co-authored over a dozen books, and these very messages resound in History Beyond Trauma (2004), co-authored with her late husband Jean-Max Gaudillière, as well as Mother Folly: A Tale (2013), among others. In her book chapter “A Quixotic Approach to Trauma and Psychosis”, Davoine invites us to follow Don Quixote's example, arguing that reading literature is not what makes us mad but rather what makes us sound.[1]Exposure to the literary arts stimulates creative imaginings, which resemble dissociative behavior, that can provide a world transforms a traumatic past. She also makes clear that Don Quixote itself served a cathartic role for Cervantes who experienced trauma from enslavement and war. Referring to the complete title (Don Quixote de la Mancha) and to the fact that la mancha means “stain” in Spanish, she claims that Cervantes felt the stain of “war trauma” and transfers that burden into an epic. In his second tome, Cervantes launches his knight against perverse relationship, after the author himself had been betrayed by contemporary writers. Don Quixote heals his author by fostering free speech and thought, despite a period plagued by epidemics, religious wars, and genocides. Pushing her argument even further in Fighting Melancholia: Don Quixote's Teaching (2018), she puts forward that psychoanalysis itself could be healed by Don Quixote, since the field has been traumatized by an overemphasis on brain sciences.[2]

[1] FRANCOISE DAVOINE, “A Quixotic Approach to Trauma and Psychosis” in Lost in Transmission: Studies of Trauma Across Generations, ed. M. Gerard Fromm, London, Karnac Books Limited, 2012, loc. 2779.

[2] FRANCOISE DAVOINE, Fighting Melancholia: Don Quixote's Teaching, London, Karnac Books Limited, 2016, 101-102.

https://beyondtrauma.yolasite.com/