TOTEM I: trauma, materiality, and me

Thursday 20 October, 1pm Milgate Room, AD Hope Bldg, SLLL

The story of my grandfather’s involvement as test subject in the British Government’s nuclear testing program in South Australia provokes my creative enquiry into trauma, embodiment, and materiality. Confronting the events of Operation Totem at Emu Field – which have only been desultorily publicly commemorated – means confronting numbness and gaps in personal, familial and public knowledge and feeling, leading me to ask the following questions: How am I materially and discursively implicated in this massive injustice? And what does my implication suggest about the nature of embodiment? In this talk I outline my research proposal for this project and sketch out its engagement with trauma theories and new materialisms.

Annelise Roberts is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the School of Literature, Language and Linguistics. Her research interests include trauma, feminism, new materialisms, and life writing. She has previously worked in the community sector and trained as an anthropologist.