An early version of this manuscript appeared as Bearing Witness: The Literature of Trauma, an American Studies dissertation, Yale University, 1991. A substantially revised version was published as Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma (Cambridge University Press, 1996). This is a third revision; in addition to substantial corrections and supplements to the text, it contains a new chapter on ethnocentric bias in the now popular field of trauma studies. Please send questions and comments to kali@kalital.com.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One: Worlds of Hurt
• Chapter Two: A Form of Witness: The Holocaust and North American Memory
• Chapter Three: Remembering Difference; Working Against Eurocentric Bias in Contemporary Scholarship on Trauma and Memory
• Chapter Four: Between the Lines: Reading the Vietnam War
• Chapter Five: The Farmer of Dreams: The Writings of W.D. Ehrhart
• Chapter Six: There Was No Plot And I Discovered It By Mistake: Trauma, Community and the Revisionary Process
• Chapter Seven: We Didn't Know What Would Happen: Opening the Discourse on Sexual Abuse
• Chapter Eight: This Is About Power On Every Level: Three Incest Survivor Narratives
• This Is Not A Conclusion

In the eight years since I began work on this book, I have received a great deal of intellectual and emotional support from my colleagues, my mentors, and my friends. I'd like to take this opportunity to name them and to thank them.

Robert Stepto's assistance was essential to my project—in the cold and unsupportive environment of Yale University's graduate school and American Studies Program, he offered me shelter from the storm. My teachers John Blassingame, Deborah Thomas, and David DeRose provided me with advice and support during the difficult years I spent in the Ph.D. program at Yale and made it possible for me to complete my degree and retain both my sense of proportion and my self-respect—to laugh instead of cry when a Director of Graduate Studies remonstrated me for my "willfulness,” and when a Dean threatened that I would "never TA again” if I refused to give back fellowship money Yale had "mistakenly” awarded me. I would also like to thank Herman Beavers, Jennifer Memhard, Wendy Kuppermann, Barbara Ballard, David Luebke, Ramona Douté and Linda Watts for their friendship, given generously (sometimes at great personal cost) in the wake of the divisive and bitter politics of the Yale clerical and technical workers' strike of 1984.

My intellectual debts date back to my undergraduate days at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and I'd like to acknowledge the influence of Marge Frantz, J. Herman Blake, Larry Veysey, Harry Eastmond, John Dizikes, Phyllis Rogers, and Michael Cowan.

My colleagues at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum deserve thanks for sharing their expertise and insights with a curious newcomer to the field. Linda Kuzmack, Radu Ionid, and Emily Dyer were extremely helpful. David Luebke, a good friend in graduate school, became a valued colleague at the Museum, suggesting new and interesting material for me to examine, reading my drafts, and offering constructive criticism of my work. Joan Ringelheim also gave me a great deal of help, advice, and support.

Through my work with Viet Nam Generation, which I founded in graduate school and continue to publish and edit, I met many people who have helped me out along the way. My thanks go to Phil Jason, Susan Jeffords, Bill King, Harry Haines, Marc Jason Gilbert, Renny Christopher, and Dan Scripture, as well as others too numerous to name.

The Vietnam veteran writers and poets with whom I have had the pleasure and privilege of working are a remarkable group of people. Bill, Anne, and Leela Ehrhart have opened their home and their hearts to me. Peter Brush read my manuscripts and gave me a new perspective on the Marine Corps. John Baky has supplied me with countless useful references and a steady stream of acerbic and invaluable commentary on the field of Vietnam War literature. David A. Willson is a fine bibliographer and an unequalled collector of popular culture artifacts that he has generously shared with his colleagues; he is also the funniest and most perceptive man I know. Alan and Linda Farrell have allowed me to escape to their cabin when I needed peace and quiet, and Alan's carefully considered response to an early draft of the manuscript was a most helpful critique.

In this revision I was assisted by the excellent editing work of Eugene W. Lyman, III.