The course starts with a broad discussion of trauma studies across neural, somatic and socio-political domains. It pays particular attention to how writers, philosophers, neuroscientists and psychologists shifted away from thinking of trauma as individual experiences of exceptional disaster to seeing it as a generalized, everyday condition of modern society. Set texts will be drawn mainly from modern literature, all of which engages with disturbing material. In place of the standard trigger warning, the course offers an opportunity to practice trauma-informed somatic experiencing techniques.