Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity

Jeffrey C. Alexander is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Sociology Department at Yale University, the author of The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology (2003), and the editor of Real Civil Societies (1998). Ron Eyerman is the author of Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity (2001). Bernhard Giesen is the author of Intellectuals and the Nation: Collective Identity in a German Axial Age (1997). Neil J. Smelser is the author of The Social Aspects of Psychoanalysis (California, 1998). Piotr Sztompka is the author of Trust: A Sociological Theory (1999).

• Preface 1. Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma: Jeffrey C. Alexander 2. Psychological Trauma and Cultural Trauma: Neil J. Smelser 3. Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity: Ron Eyerman 4. Triumph and Trauma: Bernhard Giesen 5. The Trauma of Social Change: A Case of Postcommunist Societies: Piotr Sztompka 6. On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The "Holocaust" from War Crime to Trauma Drama: Jeffrey C. Alexander Epilogue: September 11, 2001, as Cultural Trauma: Neil J. Smelser Bibliography Index