Description
This paper is concerned with women’s experiences of violence and trauma in Northern Ireland as explored through modes of performance. While Caroline Magennis (2021) argues that there is an overdetermination of trauma in scholarly analysis of cultural works in Northern Ireland, there is a marked absence of engagement with women’s experiences which are dismissed as background noise. This paper addresses this dismissal through examination of two works: a play by Vittoria Caffola, The Shedding of Skin (2022) and Maria Fusco’s opera-film, History of the Present (2023). The Shedding of Skin redresses the neglect of women’s experiences of violence in periods of conflict, as well as in post-conflict societies, while History of the Present attends to working-class women’s experiences. Both of these works amplify women’s voices and explore their experiences of the intimate and private sphere as a site of violence and trauma. Furthermore, they focus on listening to stories which are held in the sonic environment and channelled through bodies thereby enabling the audience to hear through the static interference.| Period | 02 Oct 2023 |
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| Event type | Seminar |
| Location | Belfast, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | Local |