Theopoetics of Trauma

Abstract

In “Theology and the Poetics of Testimony,” Rebecca Chopp forecasts the future of theology, suggesting that the rise of the new genre of testimony in contemporary culture requires significant shifts in modern theology--both in content and in form (Converging on Culture). First delivered as a lecture in 1997, this essay is both a forerunner in the area of trauma theology and in theopoetics. She predicts that trauma will become the context out of which theology is done, poetics will be its new form, and transcendence will be rewritten in the process. While many theologians recognize their work as situated within a “post-traumatic” context, poetics remains a more elusive challenge. This essay examines the connection between poetics and transcendence, in light of new trajectories of trauma studies and growing literatures in theopoetics.