“Teaching to Transgress” Narratives of Trauma
I like to meditate on lines or lyrics when I am journaling and processing my thoughts and a lyric that has sat with me during this year (in that I hear it constantly in moments of reflection) is the opening lyrics to Mario’s 2004 R&B classic “You Should Let Me Love You”:
Baby I just don't get it
Do you enjoy being hurt?
I know you smelled the perfume,
The make-up on his shirt
You don't believe his stories
You know that they're all lies
Bad as you are, you stick around
And I just don't know why
Especially when sitting with that second line, “Do you enjoy being hurt?” I am reminded of the book Existential Kink which came out a few months ago. I recommend it here not only as a text on the psyche, but the author has a PhD in Critical and Cultural Studies so it is an interesting example of the type of work that one can do with a PhD (in case you want to abolition your way out of academia, lol). In that book, the author discusses the somewhat twisted and masochist relationship that we have to our misfortunes. That in order to change our luck in life it is important to get down to the reasons why we might secretly enjoy the trials and tribulations that we experience. Drawing on the work of Carl Jung and the archetypes of ancient mythology, Existential Kink is a fun take on how to address the relationship between how the pain in your life is a manifestation of your subconscious through shadow integration work. This book offers a potential answer to a question that I tend to have, which is: Why is it that we continue to work in a place that creates and perpetuates narratives of trauma? I hesitate to make the comparison to abusive relationships, but at the very least, many of us are doing work in spaces and places that are mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and sometimes even physically taxing. Places and spaces that some (like a therapist or a very good friend) might say are unworthy of our care and intellectual effort.
I began to think a lot more about these questions after finishing the book “Teaching to Transgress” as part of an independent study course. At first the book felt like a breath of fresh air. I deeply connected with hooks’ opening vignette and became teary-eyed at the thought that maybe academia was a bit abolitionist. However, as I continued to read through the chapters, I began to notice a trend in the narratives. The book included multiple moments where unfortunate events would befall the protagonist (bell hooks), whether that be through illness, injury, or some other type of injustice. The amount of time and effort that hooks put into the work of teaching and healing allowed her to do so much for her students, but as the text would indicate, many times at the expense of herself.
This part of the narrative was also quite familiar, and for many of us who care deeply about healing work, there is a fine line between healing others and being a hindrance to yourself. Thinking about the existential kink of it all, when we are helping others it is easy for the ego to get activated, to find a sense of identity and satisfaction in what you can do for others i.e. the archetype of the healer. Add in sociocultural programming around race and gender and you have the formula for undue stress and burnout. However, I have also noticed that many of these behaviors have been normalized within academia. While we are “teaching to transgress” we replicate many of the hard lessons around what it means to take care of the self and others.
Within academia it is also normalized to trauma bond with other academics over these narratives. We have entire websites and journals to curate narratives which cover topics such as harassment as an undergraduate, the lack of funding in graduate school, the jumping through hoops to get a tenure track job, and the stress of promotion. These stories become even more complex and disturbing when we take into account the intersection of identities, and I find it fascinating that books such as “Presumed Incompetent” are positioned as anthologies of hope, resilience, and survival. To overcome is the goal, and the career is viewed by many as the prize. But at what cost?
What is the difference between a story of survival and a narrative of trauma?
To answer myself, it would seem that the difference between the two is the rising and falling action of the plot. Trauma is the downslope (negative) and survival or resilience is the upward slope (positive). There is a sense that many of us stay in academia, even when we are in the lowest part of the valley, because we believe that there is a peak rising up from that valley. However, what we don’t see is that the rising and falling action is continuous, like a rollercoaster or the US economy. In terms of psychology and the human body, there is a question here of whether this stark rising and falling action is healthy. Is there not a way to maintain a sense of equilibrium or homeostasis across our lives and careers? Probably not, but based on the stories I have read and heard I think it might be possible to flatten the curve a bit more than what many of us have experienced.
Especially because these stories are akin to generational trauma as academics pass down their own pain and hurts to the generations which follow them through tradition such as academic hazing. Generational trauma tends to go unacknowledged and therefore unresolved. Especially as we are encouraged to continue moving forward through each injustice, running towards the proverbial golden carrot of career success. We either hide these traumas or only share them with others who have experienced similar things. Whispered secrets become gossip and none of it results in what needs to be done. Instead these traumas calcify within us, resulting in a hardened exterior and an imperviousness to our own pain or the suffering of others. When students come to us with their problems, we have nothing to offer them as we never learned to confront our own sadness and hurt suffered at the hands of the profession. In many ways, the cult of academia requires evangelists and cheerleaders, there is no room for your discontent. Acknowledging the pain of others also requires you to acknowledge your own pain, and the trauma narratives don’t want that. They need to be needed and held on to. Retold without reprogramming. They want to live on, in your thoughts and in your actions. The inherited trauma is then that of making due with the hope that one day you will be in a position of power, incapable of domination but also very capable of recreating the trauma that was passed down to you. And so the up and down cycle continues.
However, I believe that we are in an opportune moment to change things. To cut down the festering trees of toxicity that we have built within ourselves to remove these traumas at their root. Therefore, I ask us all to think about what we are doing (or going to do) to stop passing down the same archive of sad stories? How will we produce departments, students, institutions, etc that create new stories? In teaching the Black Digital Studies Class, I created a Speculative Futures Workshop where the students were given multiple options of how to imagine a Black Digital Future. In this moment in time, we have the opportunity to do the same type of visioning work for ourselves, our students, our departments, institutions, and perhaps even our fields and disciplines. Through creative practices like vision boarding and scripting, we can imagine and write new stories for ourselves.
In particular, a writing exercise that I enjoy are ones that focus on re-writing the trauma narratives in your life. So, if you don’t have a stereotypical story of triumph, if it pains you to look back upon your career or school days, then I offer you this exercise to reprogram that moment in time. First, get into a comfortable place and/or position. You can keep things quiet, but I also recommend putting on a headset and listening to healing frequencies (528Hz and/or 963Hz are great for this type of exercise). Then, read the following question: What narratives of trauma do you tell yourself and/or others about academia or being an academic? Close your eyes and imagine these narratives, write down the experiences that come up. It might be helpful for you to craft your story as a timeline of experiences. Then, read the next question: In each of these experiences, imagine what you would have liked to happen? Write down your imagining of a timeline that you would look back on fondly. What would you have done differently? Who would you call upon to help or support you? Even if that timeline is not close to your current reality think about what you can do to make that timeline possible for others. Finally, forgive yourself and others for these experiences (I recommend guided meditations of the Ho'oponopono prayer which you can find on Spotify and YouTube). Overall, I hope that this exercise helps you to resolve any past issues that you may have around academic trauma. Perhaps it also gives you an idea of how to move towards a greater sense of oneness with yourself and the narratives which shape you.
