Aftermath:

Violence and the Remaking of a Self

Princeton University Press, Oct 6, 2003 - Social Science - 184 pages

On July 4, 1990, while on a morning walk in southern France, Susan Brison was attacked from behind, severely beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled to unconsciousness, and left for dead. She survived, but her world was destroyed. Her training as a philosopher could not help her make sense of things, and many of her fundamental assumptions about the nature of the self and the world it inhabits were shattered.

At once a personal narrative of recovery and a philosophical exploration of trauma, this book examines the undoing and remaking of a self in the aftermath of violence. It explores, from an interdisciplinary perspective, memory and truth, identity and self, autonomy and community. It offers imaginative access to the experience of a rape survivor as well as a reflective critique of a society in which women routinely fear and suffer sexual violence.

As Brison observes, trauma disrupts memory, severs past from present, and incapacitates the ability to envision a future. Yet the act of bearing witness, she argues, facilitates recovery by integrating the experience into the survivor's life's story. She also argues for the importance, as well as the hazards, of using first-person narratives in understanding not only trauma, but also larger philosophical questions about what we can know and how we should live.

Bravely and beautifully written, Aftermath is that rare book that is an illustration of its own arguments.

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Selected pages

Title Page

Index

References

Preface

Surviving Sexual Violence	1

On the Personal as Philosophical	23

Outliving Oneself	37

Acts of Memory	67

The Politics of Forgetting	85

Retellings	101

Afterword	119

Acknowledgments	125

Notes	129

Bibliography	147

Index	157

Copyright

Other editions - View all

Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self

Susan J. Brison
Limited preview - 2003

Aftermath: violence and the remaking of a self

Brison Susan J.
Limited preview - 2002

Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self

Susan J. Brison
Limited preview - 2003

View all »

Common terms and phrases

able accounts argued assailant assailant's trial attack attempt Auschwitz autonomy bear witness blame bodily body Caruth Charlotte Delbo context crime cultural Dartmouth Dartmouth College death defense Delbo Descartes described discussion emotional empathic ence experience experienced fear feel felt feminist first-person narratives flashbacks future happened helpless Herman Holocaust hospital Ian Hacking Ilongot imagine Jonathan Shay Ka-Tzetnik Kolk listeners live meaning moral narrating one's oneself Outliving AFTERMATH past performative utterances personal identity philosophical political post-traumatic stress disorder postmemory of rape Primo Levi psychological PTSD rape survivors rape victims ravine remember response Retellings Ruddick Sara Ruddick self-blame self-defense sense sexual assault sexual violence shattered Shay social someone speak speech story Surviving Sexual AFTERMATH Susan Susan Estrich symptoms tell theorists things thought tion told torture Trauma and Recovery trauma narrative trauma survivors traumatic event traumatic memories violence against women vivors walk writes York

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References from web pages

Brison, sj: Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self.
Description of the book Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self by Brison, SJ, published by Princeton University Press.
press.princeton.edu/ titles/ 7133.html

Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self By Susan Brison ...
Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. By Susan Brison. Princeton University Press. 2002. $29.25. In Aftermath Susan Brison describes her recovery ...
journals.cambridge.org/ production/ action/ cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=304061

Reading Room: Aftermath by Susan Brison
In Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self (Princeton), Susan Brison charts the disintegration of identity that occurs after sexual violence, ...
www2.oprah.com/ obc/ omag/ obc_omag_200201_room.jhtml

University of Chicago Press - Book Reviews - 10.1086/431381
Part memoir, part philosophical study of the effects of violence, Brison's Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self tells of the brutal sexual assault ...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/ cgi-bin/ resolve?id=doi:10.1086/ 431381

Webmagasinet Forum - The English Edition - Narratives of the ...
The American feminist philosopher Susan J. Brison, who surived rape and attempted sexual murder, affirms in Aftermath; Violence and the Remaking of a Self ...
www.kvinfo.dk/ side/ 563/ article/ 296/

Spectator, The: Remembering to forget
AFTERMATH: VIOLENCE AND THE REMAKING OF A SELF by Susan J. Brison Princeton, L13.95, pp. 165, ISBN 0691016194. In this exploration of her pain, terror, ...
findarticles.com/ p/ articles/ mi_qa3724/ is_200301/ ai_n9233655/ print

Democracy Now! | Susie Bright and Susan Brison on Pornography and ...
Susan Brison, professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth, author of Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self and an article last week in the San Francisco ...
www.democracynow.org/ 2004/ 8/ 17/ susie_bright_and_susan_brison_on

Violence Against Women
Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self, by Susan J. Brison. Prince-. ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. 192 pp., $19.95 (cloth). ...
vaw.sagepub.com/ cgi/ reprint/ 9/ 8/ 1032.pdf

Susan J. Brison - Contentious Freedom: Sex Work and Social ...
She is author of Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self (2002) and Speech, Harm, and Conflicts of Rights (forthcoming) and coeditor of Contemporary ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ hypatia/ v021/ 21.4brison.html

The ultimate violation | Salon Books
May 8, 2002 |. THIS ARTICLE. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. By Susan J. Brison. Princeton Univ. Press 192 pages. Nonfiction ...
archive.salon.com/ books/ feature/ 2002/ 05/ 08/ rape/ index.html

About the author (2003)

Susan J. Brison is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth College, where she also teaches in the Women's Studies Program. She is the coeditor of "Contemporary Perspectives on Constitutional Interpretation and the author of the forthcoming Speech, Harm, and Conflicts of Rights" (Princeton).

Bibliographic information

Title	Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self
Author	Susan J. Brison
Edition	3, illustrated, reprint
Publisher	Princeton University Press, 2003
ISBN	0691115702, 9780691115702
Length	184 pages
Subjects	Psychology › Psychotherapy › General Psychology / Psychotherapy / General Social Science / Violence in Society Social Science / Women's Studies

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