This article explores the displacement of trauma to the ecopoetics of reparation. Drawing on theories of reparation 1 and textual ecopoetics, 12 I examine the ways in which a textual turn to nature-"une sensibilité écologique" 23 that encompasses the atomic, cosmological, mineral, animal, and vegetal-serves a reparative function for the effects of trauma. With reference to W.
G. Sebald's The Emigrants (2002), Marie Darrieussecq's Tom est mort (2007), and RolandBarthes's Journal de deuil (2009), I analyze reparation from trauma from different ecopoetic perspectives: Sebald's gardens, Darrieussecq's cosmos, and Barthes's animalia. The turn to the ecopoetic enables these writers to rethink trauma outside the co-ordinates of chronological time, the mortal (gendered) body, anthropocentrism, self and identity, and inside an ecopoetical discourse where identity and language is reformed and relearned, and critically where trauma is reframed in a reparative discourse of an "eco-parloir" 4 underpinned by language, imagery, and cultural reference.
Trauma TheoryCritics acknowledge that trauma cannot be represented as past but is perpetually re-experienced in a present. 45 Intrinsic to this re-experience is the construction of trauma retroactively and the creation of distance from an event in order to realize its impact. I want to pursue another line of enquiry that addresses trauma in the context of reparation. Marianne Hirsch's recent work on epimemory 6 is a valuable exploration in this area. 5 Positing epi-memory as a counterpoint to 2 historical and gendered accounts of trauma, Hirsch identifies the human epidermis as a space of projection to channel memory. Central to her argument is how a methodology of the skin can be transformative in dislodging the personalization of trauma and producing political and aesthetic strategies to repair the experience of trauma. This article sits within this broad reparative framework by investigating the role of ecopoetics on the experience of trauma. Drawing on Freud's concepts of "acting out" and "working through" trauma, Dominick LaCapra (2001) and Mireille Rosello (2010) equate the concept of "acting-out" situations of trauma with a tendency to relive the past. For Freud and LaCapra, this compulsive tendency to repeat trauma is destructive and self-destructive. 67 Related to this tendency of "acting out" but also a countervailing force, is the concept of "working through," where the tendency is to gain critical distance from a traumatic event. Distinguishing between these two concepts is problematic for LaCapra. He claims that the lines between identification with the other ("acting out") and transcendence of the other ("working through") are blurred. 78 However, he acknowledges that neither concept points in the direction of a "redemptive" narrative where redemption is an overarching narrative that resolves the traumatized's experience. Mireille Rosello replaces redemption with reparation as an accommodation between "acting out" and "working through.".She echoes LaCapra's argument...
