Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion

Caroline Blyth is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Auckland. She is co-editor of the Bible and Critical Theory journal, as well as founding member of the Shiloh Project, an interdisciplinary research group studying gender violence and religion.Emily Colgan is Lecturer in Theology at Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, and contributor to the Shiloh Project.Katie B. Edwards is Director of the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies and Senior Lecturer in the School of English, University of Sheffield. She is current co-editor of the Biblical Reception journal, and founding member of the Shiloh Project.

• Chapter 1: Introduction – Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards.- Chapter 2: It’s All about Eve: Women’s Attitudes to Gender-Based Violence in Samoa – Penelope Schoeffel, Ramona Boodoosingh, and Galumalemana Steven Percival.- Chapter 3: The Impact of Colonization and Christianization on Gender Violence in the Pacific Islands – Jean Louis Rallu.- Chapter 4: Thursdays in Black: Localized Responses to Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand – Harriet Winn.- Chapter 5: Violence of Mind, Body, and Spirit: Spiritual and Religious Responses Triggered By Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide – Breann Fallon.- Chapter 6: Rape Culture in Sermons on Divorce – Valerie Hobbs.- Chapter 7: “Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts”: Transphobia, Symbolic Violence, and Conservative Christian Discourse – Caroline Blyth and Prior Tadhg McRae.- Chapter 8: LGBT Affirmation and Identity in Christian Teachings and Church Communities – David Hare.-Chapter 9: A Theology of Rape: Plundering the Woman’s Body in Deut. 21:10-14 and Louis John Steele’s Spoils to the Victor – Caroline Blyth and Jane Davidson-Ladd.- Chapter 10: Reinscribing Rape: Tracing Connections between the Experience of Women and Land in Biblical and Contemporary Texts – Emily Colgan.- Chapter 11: Rabbinic Understandings of Marital Rape in the Talmud – Mari Rethelyi.

“Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives represents a collection of works by differing authors that delves thoroughly, yet succinctly, into the historical and contemporary perspectives surrounding gender violence throughout religious texts and customs, with a plethora of research behind them. … The collection addresses issues relevant to areas such as theology, biblical and literature studies, gender and women’s studies, as well as psychology and healthcare.” (Abigail F. Smith, Journal of Interprofessional Care, jicareblog.org, September, 2018)​