The symposium Beyond Trauma? brought together scholars, artists, and activists for a transregional reassessment of the concept of trauma across various academic disciplines and cultural contexts. One of the most widely discussed concepts in contemporary cultural and academic discourse, trauma had come under scrutiny as a Western-centric narrative that often universalized and decontextualized violence. The discussions critically examined whether trauma studies had reached a point of exhaustion or whether they had generated new forms of inquiry and alternative conceptual models.

The event explored how representation, the arts, and visual culture addressed political, historical, and structural violence. Participants examined how transnational displacements and digital flows of images had reshaped perceptions of trauma in the twenty-first century. The symposium also engaged with post-humanism and new materialism, expanding the discourse to include trauma’s impact on nature and non-human agency. It reflected on emerging forms of witnessing and representation, considering their cross-cultural aesthetic responses and broader implications for rethinking trauma studies.