Edited by Barbara Thiele

Rape Culture and the Bible: Scholars Reflect offers readers the opportunity to hear from prominent and influential biblical scholars and scholar activists as they reflect on their work on sexual violence vis-a-vis the Bible. This book covers major points of inquiry in the field, focusing primarily on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. It explores debates on appropriate terminology; intersectionality of sexual violence, gender, and race; how survivor perspectives inform the reading of violent texts; male-on-male sexualized violence in biblical literature; and the connections of Judeophobia with sexual violence in early Christian literature. The introductory chapter establishes methodology, purpose, and aims of this volume. The final chapter reflects on the ethical concerns governing the field, challenges scholars have faced in their discipline, and the tasks ahead. Along the way, Rape Culture and the Bible demonstrates how rape and rape culture in the Bible impact real lives across time and the globe.  

Oxford: Routledge, 2025.

By Margaret Cormier

The most-performed operas today were written at least a hundred years ago and carry some outdated and deeply problematic ideas. When performed uncritically, the misogyny, racism, and other ideologies present in many of these works clash with modern sensibilities. In Rape at the Opera, Margaret Cormier argues that production and performance are vital elements of opera, and that contemporary opera practitioners not only interpret but create operatic works when they put them onstage. Where some directors explicitly respond to contemporary dialogues about sexual violence, others utilize sexual violence as a surefire way to titillate, to shock, and to generate press for a new production. Drawing on archival footage as well as attendance at live events, Cormier analyzes productions of canonic operas from German, Italian, and French traditions from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, including Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni, La forza del destino, Un ballo in maschera, Salome, and Turandot. In doing so, Cormier highlights the dynamism of twenty-first-century opera performance practice with regard to sexual violence, establishes methods to evaluate representations of sexual violence on the opera stage, and reframes the primary responsibility of opera critics and creators as being not to opera composers and librettists but to the public.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2024. 211p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

BY Andra Medea AND Kathleen Thompson

INTRODUCTION: “There are a number of reasons not to read this book: you have never been raped; you know it will never happen to you; if it did, you know you'd never be able to remember what to do or how to defend yourself; you'd rather not think about the possibility of being raped; you or someone you know has been raped, and you want to forget about it. These are precisely the reasons you should read this book. Rape, and our society's attitude toward rape, affects every woman in this country. No woman, whether or not she has ever felt threatened by an actual rape, can ignore the problem.

FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX: NEW YORK. 1974. 136p.