Title of Proposed Panel: Orientation-Philosophical Explorations of Trauma and Disorientation
Organizers: Dr. Reinhard G. Mueller and Dr. Olga Faccani (on behalf of the Hodges Foundation for Philosophical Orientation)
Thomas Laqueur, writing in the London Review of Books in 2010, signaled the emergence of our age as one experienced as trauma by highlighting the verifiable surge in the term’s usage: “Having once been relatively obscure, it is now found everywhere: used in the New York Times fewer than 300 times between 1851 and 1960, it has appeared 11,000 times since.” As trauma’s omnipresence surges, not least through the Coronavirus pandemic and recent wars, the challenge arises: How do we orient ourselves in a rapidly changing world and to cascading waves of traumatic experiences? How do we cope with disorienting crises?
