Religious Studies Colloquium

Fuzzy, Messy, Icky: The Edges of Consent in Biblical Rape Narratives and Rape Culture

Speaker: Dr. Rhiannon Graybill (Rhodes College)

Consent is the primary framework used to talk about sexual violence, both in reading religious texts and in responding to rape on college campuses. However, this appeal to consent is predicated on troubling assumptions. Most centrally, consent discourses fail to acknowledge the fuzzy, messy, and icky as they pertain to sexual violence. Fuzzy names the ambivalence that surrounds many situations of sexual violence, an ambivalence that extends to the complex feelings of survivors. Messy identifies the aftermath of sexual violence, and the ways that it defies a tidy resolution, or the ways that survivors’ stories cannot fit into a neat pre-ordained narrative of suffering and recovery. Icky describes ambiguity, discomfort, and unpleasant feelings upon encountering stories of sexual violence or other traces of rape culture. Taking as a starting point the fuzzy/messy/icky nature of sexual violence, this talk argues for a new feminist approach to reading rape stories in the Bible, and for responding to rape culture more broadly. The stories of Dinah (Gen. 34), Tamar (2 Sam. 13), and Lot’s daughters (Gen. 19) will receive special attention.

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 (3PM)

Location: Student Union Building, Parliamentary Room 201

Sponsored by:

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

National Women’s History Month Committee

For more information contact:

Dr. Rebekka King (rebekka.king@mtsu.edu)

Religious Studies (BA/BS): https://www.mtsu.edu/programs/religious-studies/