Rape
An Historical and Cultural Enquiry
Blackwell Publishers
Published on 15. June 1990
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-631-16906-2 (ISBN)
Description
Despite the increasing awareness of rape, we still have little understanding of both its personal and social dimensions; as a consequence, our hopes of diminishing it must be small. This collection of essays aims to increase our understanding of rape by subjecting it to scrutiny from many different points of view. The editors bring divergent and scattered debates about rape together without trying to fabricate a consensus. Thus the perspective of evolutionary biology, which sees rape as an evolved behaviour employed by men who lack other viable reproductive alternatives, is set alongside the view of an antropologist who, drawing evidence from non-raping societies, argues that contrary to popular belief men are not human versions of predatory jungle beasts, and that it was heterosexual cooperation that began the `long path to humanity'. A contribution on the media treatment of male-sexuality-with-violence traces the evolution of popular cultural sterotypes of the rapist: so different from the men who assault women in the real world.
Further essays consider the problem posed by rape for any criminal justice system and explore rape in art, myth, history and political philosophy, and the ambiguous legacy of Freud and psychoanalysis in understanding the hidden springs of rape.
Further essays consider the problem posed by rape for any criminal justice system and explore rape in art, myth, history and political philosophy, and the ambiguous legacy of Freud and psychoanalysis in understanding the hidden springs of rape.
More details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Illustrations
11 photographs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
492 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-631-16906-2 (9780631169062)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
Sylvana Tomaselli is an intellectual historian working predominantly on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her published work includes articles on the history of theories of personal identity and eighteenth-century conjectural histories of women, and a translation of a book by Jacques Lacan on the ego in Freud's theory and in psychoanalytic technique. Roy Porter is William Andrews Clark Professor at UCLA (1988-9). He has written and edited many books, including `The Pelican Social History of England: The Eighteenth Century' and `Revolution and History'.