AJR Conversations | Trauma Theory, Trauma Story

Meghan Henning: Sarah, I have admired your work since your first book on comedy and resistance in Revelation appeared and so I was eager to read your second monograph, which focuses on trauma, with my graduate students this term.[1] This book engages so many important threads, bringing together trauma theory, queer theory, and trauma-informed eating to read Ezekiel alongside Passover and Eucharist rituals. How did you go from comedy to trauma?

Sarah Emanuel: Thank you, Meghan! It’s a joy to be in conversation with you. Your question is an interesting one and goes back to my work as a doctoral student. I knew early on that I wanted to study Jewish cultural survival strategies, and my work on survival actually led me sooner to trauma theory than to comedy studies. Eventually, though, I found my way to humor-as-survival through a course on Judges, and then connected that to survival in other ancient Jewish sources, such as Revelation (as you know, I consider Revelation a Jewish text!). The shift in this second book – that is, to trauma theory sans work on humor as a survival strategy – is probably because I wanted to make this project a little different from the first. I was also noticing a lack of biblical scholarship on food in/and trauma, and that surprised me. I wanted to see where that focus could take us.

MH: Yes! I have to admit to my own surprise at finding the food and eating angle in this project, but quickly realized that I shouldn’t have been surprised once I encountered the multivalent readings of Ezekiel, Passover, and the Eucharist that you offer us. Can you say more about the connection between food in/and trauma, how you understood it when you started the project, and maybe where the research took you ultimately? Food and eating are clearly emic to the primary texts you are working with, is it also a fundamental part of trauma studies?

SE: Great questions. So the book starts by offering an overview of trauma theory as it relates to psychology, psychiatry, and literary and cultural studies. It then applies this theory–or really theories–to Ezekiel’s response to the destruction of Jerusalem, Passover, and the Eucharist rite, all using food as a trauma-informed framing. It does this, however, while also implementing other framings (e.g., queerness and sexual violence), and the types of breaks, tangents, fogginess, and multiplicities we see in experiences of trauma (the book jumps to issues that have occurred within the biblical field, for example, or intertextualities in modern television; linear storytelling and meaning-making is not how trauma works, and thus not how this book works either).

But to answer your question more specifically: yes, food comes up quite a bit in trauma studies. Survivors, for instance, may find themselves playing out their trauma in new ways throughout their post-traumatic lives, and food is an oft-noted site for this kind of enactment. In brief, survivors may negotiate and perform their feelings of self and trauma–trauma being any sort of traumatic impact, whether a neglectful parent, sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, war, displacement, etc.–through what/when/how they eat or don’t eat. I had been thinking about this for a while, but applying it to the biblical text really hit me in March 2020 when I was beginning to play with the interpretive possibilities for this book. Two things were happening in my orbit at that time: 1) We were in global lockdown, scrubbing our food supplies with various cleaners as if that would somehow grant us more control over the spreading Covid-19 virus; and 2) A loved one was beginning her work in therapy for an eating disorder. I was surrounded by pain and its relations to food and questioned if or to what extent the biblical stories–especially those that had already been read for trauma[2]–might be negotiating pain in and through food, too. Because the book of Ezekiel had already been read as performing trauma in and through the body of the Ezekiel character, I thought to look at Ezekiel first. And there it was: food. Right at the beginning of the narrative.

MH: Yes, right there, in this really visually stunning image that sticks with anyone who reads Ezekiel. You noted that you aren’t trying to “prove trauma” through food, but to see if Ezekiel says something about food we haven’t yet investigated. That is one of the things that I really appreciated about your book, that it contains so much that is novel for thinking about texts with already rich interpretive histories. Can you say a bit more about what you found in Ezekiel by looking at it in this new light?

SE: Yes! And I should start by saying that, while I think food-related expressions of trauma remain under-examined in biblical studies, I’m not the first to notice the connection between food and trauma in Ezekiel. Ruth Poser, for example, says that something about food and pain must be going on,[3] and Nancy Bowen argues that the food-related actions of Ezekiel 4-5 illustrate deliberate posttraumatic self-harm.[4] All of this is to say: I want to give credit where credit is due. It is now commonplace to read Ezekiel as performing suffering in and through his body, and there have been food-informed insights on this. But to get to your question: when I read with food and trauma in mind, what I saw was not only a suffering body, which is the common reading of Ezekiel, but also a performance of God-ordained exilic pain. In brief, while trauma enactment through eating can offer a way to numb or distance from or even blame oneself for trauma (such as the trauma of exile), it can also—simultaneously—function as a pained yet legible “speaking” of that trauma, at least for those trained to hear it.[5]

That the writer also has his God command Ezekiel to partake in such food acts, however, adds a complicated layer to the story.[6] For example: Ezekiel says that it is the higher forces of God that make him intake foodstuffs, including cow shit, at certain God-approved times. In other words, this is not simply a story about Ezekiel initiating what we might call posttraumatic behavior on his own. His behavior is always connected to his master’s–or his top’s–demands. Even when Ezekiel adds that the scroll YHWH forces him to eat “tasted sweet” (matoq) I do not imagine a “sweet” exchange. I instead see an Ezekiel submitting to his master, narrating the experience of that submission (and in turn the experience of his YHWH-condoned-submission to exile), and perhaps even alluding to a sadomasochistic relationship he has with his godhead. After all, there are lots of things–harmful (bodily?) things–that can be thrust into our mouths and still taste “sweet.”[7]  

MH: What a powerful and potentially troubling complex of imagery. I imagine for some this kind of imagery could be cathartic and for others it could be extremely violent. Maybe the divinely prompted consumption of bovine feces is a good segue into thinking about polysemy. One thing that I really appreciated in your book is the way that you emphasized that trauma is capricious and multivalent, and so is Ezekiel. What are the advantages of embracing the multivalence of trauma? The multivocality and plurisignification of Biblical texts?

SE: I’m so glad you asked this. As alluded to previously, the book jumps from topic to topic, and in doing so doesn’t stay solely within the text of Ezekiel or even solely with food (we could have spent our conversation focusing on the queer entryways of Trauma Theory, Trauma Story, for example, or its work on Passover, the Eucharist, the biblical field, or even modern television). But basically: what I tried to do is carry out trauma’s movement and plurisignifcation—its constant intertextual attaching onto thing after thing after thing—by adding layer upon layer of intertextual exegetical examination, sometimes (often times?) without spending too much time in any one place.

This was a major goal of the project—showing how trauma impacts the brain and body in both the content and the structure of my analysis. Looking back, I’m not sure it was the right move; I could have spent more time at each exegetical turn. That said, I do think the book does a good job of explaining that these jumps relate to the plurisignification of trauma and the biblical texts. And on the advantage side, I think embracing such plurisignification can help us see more earnestly how humans work, both within and outside the Bible. We are not monolithic. We never have been. Still, I do worry this overarching structural move made the analytic parts–the parts that actually try to exegete the multifarious biblical significations–a bit lacking. But again, it was a conscious choice. I wanted the piece to be its own kind of trauma story—to carry the effects and affects of the unnarratable, haze et al. So ironically, it was a lack of clarity–a lack of staying in one place or with one thought–that became my focus.[8]

MH: I think that it is really important to let the subject matter influence the shape and style of the writing, and it is something that I think about a lot within disability studies frameworks too. This last question has emerged for me from a disability studies/mad studies lens, and I am really eager to hear what you think. Trauma theory, as you explain, is based upon the 1980 DSM definition of PTSD. To what extent does trauma theory diverge from those roots? How are the roots in medical diagnostic criteria helpful or hurtful to the work that trauma theory and trauma theologians are seeking to do?

SE: Oh this is a great question. And I’ll start off by saying that I rarely see trauma studies and disability studies implemented together (maybe a future collaboration for us?), and I suspect a part of this is because disability studies pushes against the ableist assumption that a disability is a “problem requiring healing.” But as much as clinicians provide diagnoses for, say, a client’s insurance purposes, or for a client’s own peace of mind, I don’t see writers beholden to the DSM in a boundaried or linear way (even the DSM has changed over time). I think that in some instances, naming one’s pain through the lens of a diagnosis can be really freeing. And at other times, it can be limiting or generate a feeling of being “boxed in” or “just a number” or “a problem.” Interestingly, in applications of trauma theory to literature, I don’t really see diagnoses come up (e.g., scholars aren’t diagnosing writers of or characters within the Bible with a particular disorder; instead, they are highlighting the commonalities they see between its authors/characters and what we today would call trauma responses).[9] I’m curious though to know what you think. How does your work with disability studies impact your understanding of and relationship with trauma theory?

MH: Yes, I would love to work through this collaboratively at some point! I think that the same tensions exist within Disability Studies, namely that labels and diagnoses can be freeing, illuminating a path toward self-acceptance, and sometimes they can be constraining, a necessary stigma laden mantel that one must don in order to receive access to healthcare and services. With respect to mental disabilities in particular I think the p/c/s/x (patient, consumer, survivor, ex-patient) shorthand is an important way to signal that folks within the community have or have had any of a number of relationships to the medical establishment, some of which are lifesaving and therapeutic, some that are violent and themselves traumatizing.[10] One of the fundamental reasons why disability studies and trauma studies often don’t get employed together is that the connection to the DSM gives at least the appearance of an orientation towards the “cure.” This orientation has sometimes been a source of violence for the disability community, and so I think there are some points of discord there, not necessarily with the diagnosis, but with curative freight that the label “trauma” carries in our therapeutically oriented culture. That said, I could imagine ways to de-couple trauma theory from the DSM, namely by rigorously contextualizing trauma now and then as you do in the book. One of the things that I appreciated about your discussion of both Ezekiel and trauma in the contemporary world was the way that you resist a notion of a return to some bodily ideal or norm. What are the keys for talking about ancient trauma without insisting upon healing or bodily normativity as the presumed telos?

SE: So I’m answering this question after spending ten days caring for my father, who is in the later stages of Parkinson’s Disease–a physically and mentally disabling disorder–for which there is no “cure.” I say this to highlight the knowing that, even if there was a cure, he (and we), for a variety of reasons, including those related to trauma, would not be the same people we once were. Which is to say: healing in trauma studies does not mean erasing traumatic experiences or even attempting to have some sort of psychic “return” to a pre-traumatic state. Nor does it assume that there is one way to exist in the world (even the pain that comes from trauma—or the sheer naming of an event as traumatic and/or painful—is always already subjective). Trauma recovery instead constitutes the pursuit to integrate trauma and its effects into one’s conscious self. In fact, some even avoid the term “healing” when referring to trauma recovery and instead use “remaking”: survivors continually remake who they are post-trauma in ways that are non-linear, non-monolithic, and non-“returning.”[11] So in short, there is no cure for trauma. But there is an integration of posttraumatic thought and action that can ease one’s suffering, including dissociative action, while also fostering metacognitive awareness and integrity.

MH: Thank you so much for sharing that personal context and narrative. The pluriform nature of trauma and the role of personal storytelling in its aftermath came through really powerfully in your book. I think that is the fertile ground for putting disability and trauma in conversation, and I sincerely hope we can work together on that in the future, since I have already learned so much with you here.

SE: Thank you, Meghan, for your generosity. It’s been a pleasure conversing with you, and I look forward to continuing to learn from and with you!

[1] See Sarah Emanuel, Humor, Resistance, and Jewish Cultural Persistence in the Book of Revelation: Roasting Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); Trauma Theory, Trauma Story: A Narration of Biblical Studies and the World of Trauma (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

[2] I didn’t want to prove that a trauma occurred through Ezekiel’s relations to food, but rather question if the texts we’ve already examined for trauma might say something about food we haven’t yet fully investigated.

[3] Ruth Poser, “No Words: The Book of Ezekiel as Trauma Literature and a Response to Exile,” in Bile through the Lens of Trauma, ed. Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 42- 43.

[4] I did not discover Bowen’s work until late in the book’s production process, but fortunately was able to add a necessary note on her similar exegetical entryways. While I disagree with Bowen that starvation and other forms of self-harm are deliberate–I think they can often be unconscious when it comes to trauma, even in their ways of performing trauma narration (the character Ezekiel, for example, is speechless for much of his trauma performance, indicating that he may be in some sort of dissociative or unconscious state)–it seems that Bowen and I are impacted by similar trauma scholarship. See Nancy R. Bowen, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries: Ezekiel (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010).

[5] This doesn’t mean that food-expressions of trauma are in and of themselves processing acts (as noted in the footnote above, they can be dissociative, and can cause more suffering overall). The next step, or really next many steps, would be to consciously integrate their relations to one’s trauma into one’s overarching sense of self. As I discuss in the book, I think an example of a more processed, conscious performance of trauma with food can be seen in the Passover Seder. For more on the speaking of trauma, see Judith L. Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2015).

[6] I see food as a forced, queer intermediary between YHWH and his prophet; never do I analyze Ezekiel’s relations to food outside of this queer top-bottom exchange. This is what I mean in my book when I say that food as an intermediary (that is, an intermediary bound by a queer sadomasochism) between YHWH and Ezekiel has been more or less unexamined. See Trauma Theory, Trauma Story, 26.

[7] Revelation seems to think similarly; the intertextual “sweet” scroll John eats turns his stomach sour (Rev 10:9-10).

[8] I am reminded in this way of Alexis Waller’s argument that narrative coherence is not always needed for the production of meaning. I think this is quite right when it comes to trauma narrations. See Alexis Waller, “Touching Philip: Intertextuality, Texture, and Affect in the Gospel of Philip and Scholarly Handlings of It,” unpublished Masters of Divinity Thesis at Union Theological Seminary in New York, 2013. Engaged and cited  by Maia Kotosits in How Things Feel: Biblical Studies, Affect Theory, and the (Im)Personal  vol. 1, Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation 1 ( Leiden: Brill, 2016),  37-38.

[9] Although, looking back at Bowen, she does seem to diagnose Ezekiel with an eating disorder, which I avoid (I use it instead as a lens through which to examine Ezekiel). See Bowen, Ezekiel, 62.

[10] Linda J. Morrison, Talking Back to Psychiatry: The Psychiatric Consumer/Survivor/Ex-Patient Movement (New York: Routledge, 2005); Bradley Lewis, Moving Beyond DSM, Prozac, and the New Psychiatry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 157.

[11] Katie Cross and Karen O’Donnell, “Traumatised People Are Not Your ‘Mission Field,’” in The Shiloh Project: Rape Culture, Religion, and the Bible, April 1, 2021: https://www.shilohproject.blog/traumatised-people-are-not-your-mission-field/. See also Alexiana Fry, Trauma Talks in the Hebrew Bible: Speech Act Theory and Trauma Hermeneutics, forthcoming with Lexington Books.