Week 8 at an Ivy League

After that situation Week 7 with the professor springing that triggering film of graphic violence, detailed, vivid, child molestation and violent, bloody, rape on us (with no trigger warning), I felt like I couldn’t trust her any longer. Like I needed to keep my guard up. And quite frankly it made me question the high esteem in which I held her. Since the beginning of class I would sit close to her like the ancient Greeks in the philosopher’s circle; soaking of her wisdom and tutelage. (The class is half lecture half discussion and we sit around a huge rectangle table, talking and pontificating and being critical about psychological theories), she teaches their origins, and we construct and deconstruct them. This week, before class, I changed seats.

I sat as diametrically opposite of her her as I could. And my lil homie (a cute young lesbian with a haloed fro and circle shades like Morpheus), came over to find out why I moved seats so far away. (But she already knew… In her heart, I’m sure she knew.) Anyway, it was such a different experience in the back of the class. Before, the professor seemed like the sun, onto which–we, as the orbiting planets, in her reach– were shone upon… But in the back of the class I saw EVERYONE. It was a much fuller experience quite frankly. I saw people I’d never seen before… lol

The Email I Sent Professor The Night Before Class

My Addendum

(I read that creating a PS, (and especially a brief follow-up email) increases the likelihood of a message being read/opened

The Professor’s Response

To me, the response felt like it was my “feeling” about the film is what made me think there needs to be a trigger warning. Rather than, the reason why trigger warning exist in the first place…

To Complain or Not to Complain

When class opened, the professor addressed the elephant in the room and stated “I do NOT give trigger warnings….” She went into some further explanation, but I was so stunned, I was only half-hearing.

I actually had to discuss this incident with my therapist. In her professional psychological opinion; She felt the film could give people “secondary trauma,” and that it was unprofessional and borderline unethical for my professor to show it without trigger warnings. (However my therapist, a black woman) felt for my own safety that I should NOT complain to the department until I’m out of the professor’s class.

Epiphany!

Crazily, this weeks readings gave me soooo much insight into the film and why it may have been shown. The protagonist exhibited behaviors which could be explained by several psychological theories.

“What My Bones Know” by Stephanie Foo and a paper called “Trauma, Gender Identity and Sexuality: Discourses of Fragmentation**” by Lynne Layton were this week’s readings.

We were assigned over 200 pages to read this week. Which I found excessive, and sadly, again, I had to use Ai (Google’s Notebook LM) to make a podcast out of Foo’s book so I could get the gist of it. I took notes on what I heard and could only hope it summed it up correctly. Rather than telling you what this week’s reading’s were about, I’ll post my paper below.

My Week 8 Paper for Critical Theory of Trauma (click to enlarge)

There was more that happened this week, but, honestly, just too tired to write about it. I’ll include it in next week’s.

I appreciate you reading. Give me your thoughts below. on the paper, the week, whatever 🙂

<3