Seminar Theorizing Rape and Aesthetics in 2021
ACLA (The American Comparative Literature Association) 2021 Conference
April 9, 10, and 11, 2021 at 9:30 AM EST
registration with the conference required

My presentation, “Strategies of Depicting and Narrating Rape by American Womenx Visual Artists,” will examine how the artists’ intention – healing, evoking empathy, shocking the audience, effecting change – informs the remarkably varied visual languages that womenx employ to address rape – from realism to abstraction, from performative re-enactment to healing rituals, from subversion of classical iconography to avoiding depicting the female body and using text instead and complicating the relation between reality and fiction in para-documentary treatment.

I will broaden the perspective of my 2018 exhibition “The Un-Heroic Act,” adding the analysis of works by such artists as Betsy Damon, Rowan Renee, and Aviva Rahmani.

The seminar is organized by Michael Dango and Erin Spampinato. Other presenters are: Artist Aliza Shvarts, Angelique Szymanek, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Katherine Stone, University of Warwick, Molly Keran, University of Michigan, Robin Field, King's College, Zoë Brigley Thompson, The Ohio State University, Carine Mardorossian, University at Buffalo, SUNY, and Joseph Fischel, Yale University

Image: Betsy Damon