Critical Articles
1. Body-Gendrot, Sophie. (2014). “Public Disorders: Theory and Practice.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 10:1, 243-258.
“Public disorder, interpreted as a nuisance by some, is a sign of democratic vitality and innovation for others. Depending on context, it takes many forms. Hooligans, gangs, rioters, and radical groups engage in violent rituals. A breakdown of order allows opportunistic action. Failed negotiations or broken organized social processes, themselves devoid of violence, may lead to coordinated destruction or scattered attacks. Police are an essential piece in the dramaturgy of disorder, and their responses reflect what they have been trained to do and what is institutionally sanctioned. Theories of public disorder and related hypotheses address causes (the relative deprivation theory, the broken windows hypothesis) and dynamics (mobilization of resources, the spark and tinder metaphor, the flashpoint model). The interactionist/comprehensive perspective is also relevant, as it examines how routine relations may be modified by the operation of multiple forces that, in the course of fluid and undetermined situations, come together to produce public disorder in a modified context. In sum, public disorders can make a difference and cause lasting changes; some of them, as signs of democratic vitality, benefit the environments where they occur.”
2. Butler, Judith. (2015). "Theatrical Machines." differences 26.3: 23-42.
“Balibar’s consideration of Althusser’s notion of dramaturgy suggests that we might rethink conventional ways of understanding ideology. Althusser works out his views on dramaturgy through an engagement with Brecht, and so it makes sense to consider how Benjamin’s reading of Brecht offers an alternative point of view. Benjamin’s focus on gesture offers concrete ways of reconceptualizing both identification and disidentification. Read together with his critique of legal violence, one can also see how the gesture displays and arrests the destructive power of the state. Benjamin thus introduces a way to think about state violence through a dramaturgical formulation of ideology.”
3. Cobos, April. (2014)."'Rape Culture' language and the news media: contested versus non-contested cases/Le langage de la culture du viol et les medias d'information : cas non contestes vs cas contestes." ESSACHESS- Journal for Communication Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, p. 37+.
The American news media has recently reported on several rape and sexual assault cases in various cultural settings, sparking public conversations about rape culture in different cultural contexts. The article is focused as a Critical Discourse Analysis that compares the language use in news articles from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal over a six months period in order to more clearly understand the way the news media uses language in regards to gender and sexual assault and creates a spectrum of valid versus contested reports of sexual assault in different cultural settings.
4. Dodge, Alexa. (2016). “Digitizing Rape Culture: Online sexual violence and the power of the digital photograph.” Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal. 12:1.
“The damaging effects, for both the victims and perpetrators, of photographing sexual assault should be self-evident. However, in the cases of Rehtaeh Parsons, Jane Doe and Audrie Pott, photographs of sexual violence seem to have been taken and digitally disseminated without regard for the possible consequences. Thus, these cases pose disturbing questions about the ways that sexual violence is normalized and legitimized in western culture and the ways that new media is implicated in this process. These cases demonstrate how the ubiquity and permanence of digital photographs create new concerns for victims of sexual violence and new questions regarding the interpretive matrix of photographs. Using Judith Butler’s theory on photography, torture and framing, I argue that these cases are an example of what Butler refers to as the digitalization of evil. Through this framework, I will discuss the ways that new media exacerbates experiences of sexual violence and examine issues surrounding the interpretation of photographs of sexual violence.”
5. Fairbairn J. (2015). Rape threats and revenge porn: Defining sexual violence in the digital age. In: Bailey J, Steeves V (eds) eGirls, eCitizens. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp.229–252.
6. Ferreday, Jessica. (2015). “Game of Thrones, Rape Culture and Feminist Fandom.” Australian Feminist Studies. 30:83. 21-36.
“Throughout its run, HBO's adaptation of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series, retitled Game of Thrones (GoT), has attracted controversy for its depiction of nudity and graphic sex and violence. But a particular recent scene, in which a brother rapes his sister, caused outrage in media and fan commentary. This article considers the scene in question, and feminist responses to it, in the context of wider cultural debates about rape culture and the media representation of sexual violence. Following Sarah Projansky's argument that rape is a ‘particularly versatile narrative element’ that ‘often addresses any number of social themes and issues’, I read GoT and its online fan responses alongside literary theories of the fantastic, to examine how dominant rape culture discourses are both reproduced and challenged in fan communities. In particular I argue that fan narratives both reproduce discourses of masculinity and futurity that contribute to rape culture, but also provide a potential space for change through speaking out about silenced experiences of trauma.”
7. Friedman J. (2008). “In defense of going wild or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love pleasure (and how you can, too).” Friedman J, Valenti J. (eds). Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
8. Filipovic J. (2008). :Offensive feminism: The Conservative gender norms that perpetuate rape culture, and how feminists can fight back.” Friedman J, Valenti J. (eds). Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
9.Flaherty, K., & Hurford, D. (1996). Journeys without maps: Dramaturgy of the post-modern. Canadian Theatre Review, (87), 31-33.
“Deb: In the summer of 1994, I collaborated on the development of a new drama about surviving sexual abuse and assault, Running Through the Devil's Club. The play exposes the stories and struggles of eight female survivors, from various socio - economic and cultural backgrounds, who were all in separate stages of healing. During the play, cast members smeared mud on their faces. The mud became a hot topic in the post - performance discussions. For some it symbolized how ‘dirty,’ ‘marked,’ or ‘stained’ survivors often feel; for others it represented the mask of denial worn by survivors refusing to acknowledge their abuse and its impact on their lives; others saw playing in the mud as a means of reclaiming lost childhoods, or a way of cleansing oneself with mother earth. Personally, I felt ugly and beautiful at the same time. Clearly, audience and cast members each found a personal interpretation for the mud. And that's a strength in an image. What if we had rejected the idea just because it was open to a wide range of interpretation?”
10. Gomez, Cynthia. "Show Community ‘rape Culture’ Stereotypes Don't Apply to Your Campus." Campus Security Report 11.12 (2015): 1-7.
“Rape culture” seems to have become a favorite media buzzword these days. The growing list of colleges and universities across the country under federal scrutiny for their handling of sexual assault cases seems to support the idea that such a culture is truly alive and well throughout academia today, despite legislative efforts to address the problem.”
11. Hall S. (1997). “Introduction.” Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London, UK: Sage Publications, pp.1–12.
12. The Huffington Post Canada. (2013). “Rehtaeh Parsons suicide: Halifax teen kills herself after alleged rape, online bullying.” The Huffington Post Canada, 12 April 2016. Web.
13. Keller, Jessalynn. (2015). “Speaking ‘unspeakable things:’ documenting digital feminist responses to rape culture.” Journal of Gender Studies. 1-15
“This paper examines the ways in which girls and women are using digital media platforms to challenge the rape culture they experience in their everyday lives; including street harassment, sexual assault, and the policing of the body and clothing in school settings. Focusing on three international cases, including the anti-street harassment site Hollaback!, the hashtag #BeenRapedNeverReported, and interviews with teenage Twitter activists, the paper asks: What experiences of harassment, misogyny and rape culture are girls and women responding to? How are girls and women using digital media technologies to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? And, why are girls and women choosing to mobilize digital media technologies in such a way? Employing an approach that includes ethnographic methods such as semi-structured interviews, content analysis, discursive textual analysis, and affect theories, we detail a range of ways that women and girls are using social media platforms to speak about, and thus make visible, experiences of rape culture. We argue that this digital mediation enables new connections previously unavailable to girls and women, allowing them to redraw the boundaries between themselves and others.”
14. Kimmel M. (2005). “Men, masculinity, and the rape culture.” Buchwald E, Fletcher P, Roth M (eds). Transforming a Rape Culture: Revised Edition. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, pp. 140–157.
15. Jordan, Eamonn. "Menace and play: dissipating and emerging dramaturgies in Irish theatre in the 1990s." The AnaChronisT, 2007, p. 157
16. McOmber, James B. (1996). “Silencing the Patient: Freud, Sexual Abuse, and ‘The Etiology of Hysteria.’” Quarterly Journal of Speech. 82, 343-363.
17. Powell A. (2010). Configuring consent: Emerging technologies, unauthorized sexual images and sexual assault. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 43: 76–90.
18. Rentschler, C. A. (2014). Rape culture and the feminist politics of social media. Girlhood Studies, 7(1), 65-82.
“Young feminists use social media in order to respond to rape culture and to hold accountable the purveyors of its practices and ways of thinking when mainstream news media, police and school authorities do not. This article analyzes how social networks identified with young feminists take shape via social media responses to sexual violence, and how those networks are organized around the conceptual framework of rape culture. Drawing on the concept of response-ability, the article analyzes how recent social media responses to rape culture evidence the affective and technocultural nature of current feminist network building and the ways this online criticism re-imagines the position of feminist witnesses to rape culture.”
19. Röttger, Kati. "Beyond Medusa. Recovering History on Stage." Arcadia - International Journal for Literary Studies 45.2 (2011): 374-86.
“The theatre work of the Austrian Elfriede Jelinek is known for its critique of mythology. In her recent “work in progress”, which closely follows media reports about the Iraq war and the tortures in Abu Ghraib, Jelinek concentrates on the mythologizing effects of a “wartainment” that a supposedly alert, educated population can witness as little more than a spectacular television melodrama. According to Jelinek this rapidly erases the event from public memory. In the second step of her progressing work, “Babel” (2005), she deconstructs these telematic strategies of forgetting, ignoring and blinding traumatic experiences by creating what she in a slightly ironical way calls an “artwork of morality.” Jelinek is pleading with her work for a concept of performing history (on stage) that inscribes what does not let inscribe itself: the contingency of events of terror, war and torture that ruptures continuity and signification.”
20. Salter M. (2013). “Justice and revenge in online counter-publics: Emerging responses to sexual violence in the age of social media.” Crime, Media, Culture 9(3): 225–242.
21. Singh, Anita. "An interview with Poile Sengupta." Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, 2012, p. 78+.
“Poile Sengupta is a writer who since 1993 has made a significant mark in Indian theatre writing of English-language scripts that bring women's issues to the center of the stage. Childhood sexual abuse was a theme in her first play; themes of mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law conflict and the anger of the dispossessed and disempowered fuel her work, which has been staged by her own company, Theatre Club in Bangalore.”
22. Skinner, L. (2012, Summer). “Rape Culture and Masculinity.” Fuse Magazine, 35, 6-7.
“In rape culture, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women are both common and tolerated. Evidence of rape culture is found in the prevalence of sexual assault, compared to low rates of arrest, prosecution and conviction. Patriarchy breeds rape culture, which is perpetuated by popular media saturated with images of rape. Historically, anti-rape campaigns have primarily targeted women with the apparent goal of providing tips on how to avoid being raped. Too often, this rhetoric amounts to little more than victim-blaming and fails to assign accountability to the perpetrators. Over the past decade, by contrast, there have been a number of anti-rape campaigns targeting men and their role in rape culture. A growing movement for sexual assault accountability has been promoted by campaigns such as MyStrength, Don't Be That Guy, and a host of others designed and run in Canada, the United States and Europe (in particular, Scotland, Ireland and England). While these campaigns are evidence of shifting societal attitudes towards rape, they generally lack a critical feminist lens that would allow them to promote affirmative consent and a substantive move away from cultures of gendered violence.”
23. Tasca, Cecilia, Mariangela Rapetti, Mauro Giovanni Carta and Bianca Fadda. (2012). “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Practice & Epidemology in Mental Health, 2012, 8, 110-119.
24. Williams, Mary (1956). “A Study of Hysteria in Women.” Journal of Analytical Psychology. 1:2, 177-188.
25. Wood, Mark Dundas. "A Memory. A Monologue. A Rant. And A Prayer: Writings to Stop Violence Against Women and Girls." Back Stage West, 24 Jan. 2008, p. 15.
“This collection of writings from that program is to duplicate the success of The Vagina Monologues by instigating a new series of consciousness-raising events. Much of the work is potent. Some pieces have a biting, sophisticated dramaturgy, such as Anna Deavere Smith's playlet, "None of Us Are Monologuists (aka Chill)," about a Tutsi woman from Rwanda who becomes a fashion model in New York. Others are more abstract, especially Robin Morgan's "Connect: A Web of Words," a word-association collage that invites all sorts of imaginative, staging possibilities. Some of the best selections are straightforward stories, such as "Banana Beer Bath," Lynn Nottage's heartbreaking retelling of the true tale of a Ugandan mother's ultimate sacrifice.”
26. Young A. (2014). From object to encounter: Aesthetic politics and visual criminology. Theoretical Criminology 18(2): 159–175.