CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Associate Professor Gerard L. Aching

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Associate Professor Gabriela Basterra

The Program in Trauma and Violence Trans-disciplinary Studies (TVTS) brings together all of the disciplines and professions, including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, the arts, law, medicine, and policy. This program fosters cross-cutting conversations and research in every area of the analysis, prevention, and treatment of trauma and violence. Our aim is to include a diversity of interests and approaches in order to catalyze innovations in every field.

Students may earn a Master of Arts degree (32 points) or an advanced certificate (20 points) in TVTS. The M.A. program is open to application by anyone who holds an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution. The advanced certificate program is open to application by all who are currently earning a graduate degree at NYU or hold or are earning a graduate degree from another accredited institution. The academic programs are built on a core curriculum (15 points) that gives students a strong foundation in all of the clinical and theoretical approaches to trauma and violence studies. Building on the work of the core curriculum, students, in consultation with an academic adviser, design an individualized course of study that best suits their academic goals.

Possible topics of study include, but are not limited to, the following: human rights; Holocaust studies; war, torture, genocide; slavery; environmental justice, natural disasters; illness; school violence; domestic violence; sexual abuse; hate crimes; peace and conflict studies; international relations; globalization, technology, media; terrorism; history and historiography; politics, policy, law; writing the disaster; philosophy and thinking through the unthinkable; popular culture, performance, literary and visual representations; music and shock, sonic intrusion; memory, memorialization, forgetting; forgiveness and reconciliation; capital punishment; rebuilding the future, activism, community building.

Faculty

Judith Alpert, Professor, Applied Psychology (Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development); Codirector, Program in Trauma and Violence Transdisciplinary Studies; Faculty and Training Supervisor, Postdoctoral Program for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Ph.D. 1973, Columbia; B.A. 1966, Tufts.

Shireen R. K. Patell, Clinical Professor; Associate Director, Program in Trauma and Violence Transdisciplinary Studies. Ph.D. 2001 (comparative literature), California (Berkeley); B.A. 1987 (Romance languages and literatures), Princeton.

Avital Ronell, Professor, German, Comparative Literature; Codirector, Program in Trauma and Violence Transdisciplinary Studies. Ph.D. 1979 (Germanic languages and literature), Princeton; B.A. 1974 (German, philosophy, French), Middlebury College.

In addition to the directors of the program, a wide range of faculty members from a number of disciplines and schools within the University are affiliated with the program.