Trauma Unmakes the World | Samira Rajabi | TEDxBoulder

Trauma is an inevitable reality of life, but what is the best way to be of service to suffering souls? Perhaps the easiest way to support is to abandon the trite, practiced, cliched language of fighting, strength, and fixing in favor of a quieter response. Maybe all we need to do when the people we love are suffering is to be there for them. In this talk Samira Rajabi, a media and trauma researcher, explores the language of caring and how we can do a better job of sitting in the shit with one another when life inevitably gets shitty. Samira Rajabi is a teacher, scholar, and writer, fascinated by health communication, global identity making, and our ever expanding digitally mediated world.

Samira is a passionate educator and is currently an Instructor and Director of Technology Influenced Pedagogy at the University of Colorado’s College of Media, Communication, and Information. Before that she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania where she taught classes about memes and meaning (and was the highest rated instructor during the terms taught!) and worked on her book-in-progress, All My friends Live in my Computer: Tactical Media, Trauma, and Meaning Making. The proud daughter of immigrants from Iran, Samira explores ideas of suffering and belonging in immigrant communities as well as suffering and belonging in communities facing trauma. Samira has a doctoral degree in Media Studies. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx