Activities

The postwar period in American cinema is marked by increasingly pessimistic portrayals of domestic life, which gradually undermined the previously sacrosanct notion of the home. This development gave rise to a cycle of transgeneric films commonly categorized as film noir, a body of work that explores the darker undercurrents of American postwar society. The era was characterized by significant social upheaval, largely driven by the expanded role of women during World War II. As women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers, traditional gender dynamics were disrupted, challenging established societal norms. Film noir can be understood, in part, as a response to these transformations, introducing new character archetypes such as the femme fatale and the psychologically disturbed male protagonist. The latter figure often reflects the lingering effects of trauma, manifested in psychological deterioration and unstable behavior.

This paper examines In a Lonely Place, a seminal work by Nicholas Ray, widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s most distinctive auteurs. The film serves as a representative example of the final phase of film noir, during which more balanced character portrayals gave way to increasingly unstable and pathological figures. As Paul Schrader observes, the third phase of film noir (1949–1953) is defined by “psychotic action and suicidal impulse,” encompassing films such as Gun Crazy, The Big Heat, Detective Story, White Heat, and In a Lonely Place. The protagonist of Ray’s film, Dixon Steele, exemplifies the (anti)hero of this late noir phase, whose character undergoes a profound process of psychological disintegration. This study analyzes the film through multiple interdisciplinary frameworks, including stylistic, existential, and feminist approaches—each central to film noir scholarship. Particular emphasis is placed on the concept of trauma, drawing on the theoretical contributions of Cathy Caruth and Kirby Farrell.

The presentation highlights the potential of incorporating video games into school-based interventions with children, aiming to either resolve or prevent specific traumatic experiences. Two distinct categories of video games are identified. The first category comprises games specifically designed for trauma intervention, developed in collaboration with mental health professionals. A prominent example is the game SPARX (Sparx Studios, 2013), which utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to assist players in symptom reduction. The second category also focuses on addressing traumatic experiences but approaches the issue through an artistic lens, exhibiting closer stylistic ties to literary texts. Within these games, the narrative is intrinsically linked to the characters' traumatic experiences, thereby enabling players to confront and resolve their own experiences through empathy with the characters. In this context, the presentation analyzes the following video games: Disco Elysium, Gris, That Dragon, Cancer, Child of Light, and Persona 5.

As part of the 2026 Science Festival and the RETRA project (Representation of Trauma in Literature and New Media), a specialized workshop titled "THE ENERGY OF WORDS: Verbalizing Rodion Raskolnikov's Trauma" took place on April 22 at the University of Zadar.

The event, held in the Slavic Library’s multimedia reading room at the Department of Croatian Studies, was organized for students from the Ante Kuzmanić Medical School. Graduate students Leona Mladin and Amarija Kraljić designed and led the session under the mentorship of project lead Prof. Kornelija Kuvač, PhD. The initiative is part of the ongoing RETRA research project (IP-UNIZD 2025-27080), which explores the intersections of trauma and creative expression. The students were accompanied and prepared for the workshop by their Croatian language teacher, Anja Gligora, prof.

The presentation focused on the corpus of recent texts from Croatian and world children's and adolescent literature that represent traumatic experiences (family, peer, social, identity, etc.). Such texts enable the recognition and understanding of trauma and traumatized individuals and the development of empathetic responses in a wider community of readers (school, class, reading group). The lecturer introduced Croatian language teachers to the theory of trauma in the humanities and the methodology of its application in the interpretation of literary texts. She paid special attention to the peculiarities of representations of trauma in children's and adolescent literature with regard to its pedagogical and educational purpose. By interpreting Ivana Šojat's novel "I Draw Trees on the Walls" (2023), she pointed out the bibliotherapy effects of the author's narrative, characterization and stylistic strategies. The aim was to encourage teachers to devise methods that replace the focus on the text with a focus on the young reader and his current developmental needs, without neglecting the development of his literary and aesthetic competences. 

The lecture was held at the Kruno Krstić Elementary School in Zadar, on March 31, 2026.

The trauma of war leaves long-lasting consequences for the individual and society. Cultural and literary elites have a great responsibility in determining what meaning they will give to the experience of war. Should culture work towards healing society or leave it immersed in trauma for decades to come? This largely depends on the ways in which the experience of war is incorporated into collective memory. This is also the difference between war and anti-war literature. War trauma can be interpreted as a social need at a certain historical moment, or it can be presented as an absurd result of social and political manipulation preceding the war. The 21st century writer acts as a witness who makes the reader aware of and confronts the real experience of war. He often breaks away from the dominant social narrative by giving voice to the true victim who cannot express his trauma. He points to the danger of transferring war trauma to the descendants of the victims, which generates future wars. The 21st century writer undermines the grand historical stories with which political elites justify wars. The lecture presented the differences between war and anti-war literature, the development of Croatian anti-war literature in the 21st century, and through a very current approach to trauma theory, interpreted several novels that communicate the war experience by combining photography and text and connecting anti-war writing with elements of horror.