As we come to know more about trauma, describing a single event—physical or psychological, as ‘traumatic’ often ignores its role as a historical-political-social phenomenon that pertains to much more than an individual’s experience. Perhaps it is the lack of appropriate language within the fields of trauma studies that has caused this disconnect as the stories of survivors are more often than not, tossed aside and regarded as anomalous. My thesis seeks to delve into the almost inconceivable and inaccessible territory of the Gwangju Uprising and the Tiananmen Massacre, whose histories have been created and defined by the state. Within the stories of survivors emerge heterotopias or countersites to the dominant, ‘acceptable’ renditions of these events and as such, I seek to reconstruct the theoretical framework by which we analyze the cultural nuances of trauma within East Asia that is particular to student-led democratization movements.

Kayla Smitson is a second year IDMA student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature. They received their bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies with a minor in Korean Culture and Language at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Their research interests include the portrayal of trauma in literature and film in contemporary China and South Korea, particularly in the 1960s-1980s.

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