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Department of English Studies

World Literature and Epigenetics: Women Narrating Transgenerational Trauma

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27 March 2026 - 27 March 2026

9:30AM - 5:30PM

Tom Percival Annex, Brooks House, St Cuthbert's Society, Durham DH1 2JP

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An interdisciplinary conference discussing the intersections between epigenetics, trauma, and multilingual narratives.

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World Literature and Epigenetics: Women Narrating Transgenerational Trauma

World Literature and Epigenetics: Women Narrating Transgenerational Trauma is the first workshop to bring together creative writers and scholars from the fields of epigenetics, anthropology, psychology, bioscience, law and literature to explore how trauma is lived, narrated, and transmitted across generations.
Please see the full agenda, and reserve your place on Eventbrite.
Please note that 'Igiaba Scego in Conversation with Tiziana de Rogatis and Katrin Wehling-Giorgi' (1-2PM) is online and in-person; the rest of the day is in-person only.
From this interdisciplinary perspective, the event examines how emerging research in psychology, anthropology and epigenetics—showing how lived experience can alter gene expression and be inherited—resonates with long-standing literary narratives of intergenerational trauma, particularly those centred on women and maternal transmission. The workshop will explore the contribution storytelling makes to the understanding of female-focalised trauma, including its relational, psychosocial and often multilingual/translingual context as trauma crosses borders.
The aim is to forge a productive dialogue between literary narratives of trauma and the latest findings in epigenetics, anthropology, bioscience, psychology and law that ultimately provides new insights into the transgenerational transmission and lived experience of trauma.
Generously sponsored by the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Society (ILCS, London), The Society of Italian Studies, the Affective Experiences Lab and the Research Group on Violence, Trauma and Memory based at Durham University’s Institute for Medical Humanities, the workshop will feature creative facilitation of interdisciplinary dialogue, papers from invited scholars working across the humanities, anthropology and psychology, and a conversation with and reading by award-winning Somali-Italian writer Igiaba Scego. 

Please note that this event is free to attend.

If you have any access/dietary requirements, please email imh.events@durham.ac.uk.

Pricing

Free