Department of English Professor Christina Jarvis wrote an essay “Displaced Trauma and the Legacies of the Vietnam War in Hocus Pocus” that was published in the 2016 issue of War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities.
Drawing on literary, historical and gender studies approaches, the article investigates the connections between war-related trauma, family dynamics, history and cultural memory in Kurt Vonnegut’s penultimate novel. Dr. Jarvis argues that “Hocus Pocus” revisits the trauma of the Vietnam War to challenge revisionist narratives of the conflict that emerged during the 1980s.
Jarvis’s publication is the most recent of several Vonnegut-related scholarly endeavors. Over the past year, she has presented her research at four campus events, including the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Brown Bag panel on Mr. Vonnegut’s 1978 Fredonia Commencement Address. Last November, Jarvis also spoke on the author’s secular humanism at the Vonnegut and Religion panel during Indianapolis’s Vonnegutfest. Organized by the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, the 2015 panel was moderated by Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” and included bestselling writer and renowned Vonnegut scholar Dan Wakefield.
Jarvis, who teaches courses in 20th century American literature and culture, American Studies, gender studies and sustainability, is currently completing a book project on environmental aspects of Vonnegut’s writings. To read her War, Literature & the Arts article.
