Reaffirming the Queer Traumatized Self through Home: An Analysis of the Potential of Traumascapes in John Elizabeth Stintzi’s Vanishing Monuments (2021).

Abstract

This article examines John Elizabeth Stintzi’s novel Vanishing Monuments (2021) applying the views of trauma, queer theory, and the potential discussions around the notion of place. The main issue in Vanishing Monuments is how returning home implies grappling with a non-linear account of haunted memories related to identity and trauma. Drawing on Maria Tumarkin’s concept of traumascapes and connecting it to Cvetkovich’s notion of “queer trauma,” this article aims at disclosing the potentialities that physical spaces can have for the traumatized queer subject.  Firstly, this paper’s analysis will draw a connection between trauma and place to examine the function that the protagonist’s house has in the enactment of their trauma. Secondly, I will explore how the main character’s trauma is embodied in the narrative through a link between the concept of traumascapes and Ann Cvetkovich’s notion of queer trauma. This article concludes by evaluating the role that traumascapes might have for the queer subject to productively respond to trauma outside pathological boundaries.