Contribution short abstract:

'Trauma talk' has become ubiquitous in Iceland recently. Public discourse is replete with stories of trauma and its aftermath. Key feature of this talk is its melodramatic character, its mobilisation to articulate stories of personal growth. This papers attends to the traumas thus left unwritten.

Contribution long abstract:

'Trauma talk' has become ubiquitous in Iceland in recent years. Public discourse, both in mainstream and social media, is replete with personal accounts of trauma, its causes, effects and aftermath. A key feature of this trauma talk is its distinctively melodramatic and redemptive character. Drawing on Peter Brooks notion of the 'melodramatic imagination' this paper highlights, first, how trauma talk in public discourse in Iceland works to tell stories of adversity, resilience and personal growth. The paper discusses how the melodramatic and redemptive character of trauma talk can work to erase discussions about the various different causes of trauma, thus psychologising and naturalising trauma as a condition. Secondly the paper discusses how stories of trauma without redemption, without personal growth are in the process left unwritten. Lastly, the paper relates the melodramatic character of trauma talk with the emerging subject position of victim/survivor, þolandi in Icelandic, and the demands this subject position makes of innocence and the simplification it effects on questions of responsibility, guilt and shame.