Rape Culture and Religious Studies

Rhiannon Graybill is W.J. Millard professor of religion and associate professor of religious studies at Rhodes College. Beatrice Lawrence is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Seattle University. Meredith Minister is assistant professor of religion at Shenandoah University.

Framed by the current #MeToo movement, Rape Culture and Religious Studies: Critical and Pedagogical Engagements seeks to start conversations within religious studies about “sexual violence, especially sexual violence on college and university campuses” (2). Whether or not the authors explicitly frame their discussion around classroom contexts, they all provide valuable food for thought about engaging students in meaningful conversations about sexual violence, rape culture, and religion in both their studies and their everyday lives.

• Introduction: Engaging Rape Culture, Reimagining Religious StudiesRhiannon Graybill, Meredith Minister, and Beatrice Lawrence 1. Reading Biblical Rape Texts beyond a Cop-Out Hermeneutics in the Trump EraSusanne Scholz2. Constructions of Hindu Mythology after the Rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey: Coupling Activism with PedagogyT. Nicole Goulet3. Teaching Rape, Slavery, and Genocide in Bible and CultureGwynn Kessler4. On #MosqueMeToo: Lessons for Nuancing and Better Implementing the Lessons of #MeTooKirsten Boles 5. Judges 19 and Non-Con: Sado-Kantian Aesthetics of Violence in the Tale of an Unnamed WomanMinenhle Nomalungelo Khumalo 6. To Confess the Fundamental Marian Dogma: Postulating the Doctrine of Mary’s Reproductive Justice Jeremy Posadas7. Rape Culture in the Rabbinic Construction of GenderBeatrice Lawrence 8. Sex and Alien Encounter: Rethinking Consent as a Rape Prevention Strategy Meredith Minister 9. Good Intentions are Not EnoughRhiannon Graybill