Members & Friends Salon ‘‘Traumatic Nationalism” A discussion with Dr. Clare Morgana Gillis
February 20, 2026
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
This Salon will focus on the idea of traumatic nationalism. What does it mean when a national identity is closely bound up with an experience or experiences of incredible trauma? What does it mean for statecraft when it is practiced against a backdrop of avenging past wrongs or preventing their future recurrence?
In the psychology of an individual, a trauma response occurs when a person is reminded or brought back to a moment of rupture or violence that causes their neurology to react strictly within a fight, flight, or freeze reaction – it is a condition within which rational, strategic, or long-term thought is inaccessible.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, the two national identities are formed or formalized through the respective experiences of the Holocaust and the Nakba. The admonition “never forget” can stride a tenuous line between keeping memory of departed loved ones alive, of limiting the ability to move forward, and, most crucially, of seeing existential threats everywhere and acting to eradicate them, which keeps a cycle of trauma alive.
Another incarnation of traumatic nationalism is the narrative of the Trump administration about the US’ role in the world. In this telling, the US has been taken advantage of – by countries with which it is in a trade deficit, by NATO and other allies who have not spent their mandatory GDP percentage on their own defense, by trade deals that have shipped Americans’ jobs overseas, by immigrants who have abused the system, by renewable energy programs that have cut jobs in the fossil fuel industry – in short, a series of wrongs that have been done to the American people by powers great and small the world over, by enemies foreign and domestic. The solution proposed by the current administration is the imposition of pain on other countries, the living-out of a revenge fantasy.
Dr. Clare Gillis is a historian and journalist living in Brattleboro, VT. She has reported from Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Mali, and Windham County, Vermont. As a history professor, she has taught at Marlboro, Dartmouth and Landmark Colleges.
Currently she teaches at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Since joining the WWAC board in 2018, she has facilitated, moderated, and helped organize numerous talks for the organization, including her presentation in November 2019, “Beheading in the age of its technological reproducibility. “A native of New Haven CT, she earned a BA from the University of Chicago and an MA and PhD from Harvard. Prior to landing in Brattleboro in 2015, she spent years working and living in some of the world’s great cities, including Berlin, Reykjavik, Cairo, and Istanbul. She can normally be found kayaking on the river, admiring mosses, hanging out with her nephews, and interrogating how contemporary political interests employ the(ir) notions of history.
An RSVP is appreciated to windhamworldaffairscouncil@gmail.com
