Description
Texts after Terror offers an important new theory of rape and sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible. While the Bible is filled with stories of rape, scholarly approaches to sexual violence in the scriptures remain exhausted, dated, and in some cases even un-feminist, lagging far behind contemporary discourse about sexual violence and rape culture. Graybill responds to this disconnect by engaging contemporary conversations about rape culture, sexual violence, and #MeToo, arguing that rape and sexual violence - both in the Bible and in contemporary culture - are frequently fuzzy, messy, and icky, and that we need to take these features seriously. Texts after Terror offers a new framework informed by contemporary conversations about sexual violence, writings by victims and survivors, and feminist, queer, and affect theory. In addition, Graybill offers significant new readings of biblical rape stories, including Dinah (Gen. 34), Tamar (2 Sam. 13), Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11), Hagar (Gen. 16), Daughter Zion (Lam. 1-2), and the unnamed woman known as the Levite's concubine (Judges 19). Texts after Terror urges feminist biblical scholars and readers of all sorts to take seriously sexual violence and rape, while also holding space for new ways of reading these texts that go beyond terror, considering what might come after.
About the Author
Rhiannon Graybill is Marcus M. and Carole M. Weinstein and Gilbert M. and Fannie S. Rosenthal Chair of Jewish Studies and professor of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond. She is the author of Texts after Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 2021) and Are We Not Men?: Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (Oxford, 2016). She is the co-author (with John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie) of Jonah: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (Yale Anchor Bible, 2023).
Reviews
The volume moves beyond the usual feminist approaches to these stories and, as such, is bound to stimulate further discussion and reflection. * ERYL W. DAVIES, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament *
...this is a book pushes at the issues it raises in ways that linger, and that alone may commend it. * Sandra Gravett, Appalachian State University, Society of Biblical Literature *
Her ultimate conclusion is compelling: feminist readings of texts should be seeking to find ways to contend with stories of sexual violence in the Bible rather than simply retelling difficult stories. * M. M. Veeneman, CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8 *
In Texts After Terror, Graybill models a way of reading biblical texts that honors and reveals their complexity, and provides the next generation of feminist scholars, and really all biblical readers, a way to continue to engage critically and authentically with many of the Bible's most disturbing narratives. * Dr. Amy Kalmanofsky, Dean of List College and the Kekst Graduate School, The Jewish Theological Seminary *
Texts after Terror is a daring and devastating tour de force - raising new questions, evoking new feelings, and proposing new relations for what else and what comes after multiple forms of sexual harm. With characteristic wit and anger, breadth and incision, brilliance and ambivalence, Rhiannon Graybill takes biblical interpretation beyond the depressingly low bar of consent toward other possibilities. Grappling with these texts and their violences requires staying with their manifest troubles and refusing their redemption or recuperation. In this and many other ways, Texts after Terror is as unsettling as it is indispensable. * Joseph Marchal, Professor of Religious Studies, Ball State University *
Rhiannon Graybill shows herself a worthy inheritor of feminist biblical scholarship to build upon, poke holes in, push further, and complexify how rape tales have been read. Her "unhappy readings" of these tales take up feminist, queer, and strands of other theorization about sex, rape, rape culture, and power by reading through literature to situate the tales in the persistent misogyny that sadly still marks our own times. * Steed Vernyl Davidson, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, McCormick Theological Seminary *
Texts after Terror excels not only in its impactful contribution to ongoing development of scholarship in this area, but also in its stimulation of further critical dialogue around sexual violence in biblical texts. * Charlotte Thomas, University of Exeter, Modern Believing *
Awards
Winner of Co-Winner, Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion Textual Studies, American Academy of Religion.
Book Information
ISBN 9780197764114
Author Rhiannon Graybill
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 360g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 157mm * 15mm
About the Author
Rhiannon Graybill is Marcus M. and Carole M. Weinstein and Gilbert M. and Fannie S. Rosenthal Chair of Jewish Studies and professor of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond. She is the author of Texts after Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 2021) and Are We Not Men?: Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (Oxford, 2016). She is the co-author (with John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie) of Jonah: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (Yale Anchor Bible, 2023).
Reviews
The volume moves beyond the usual feminist approaches to these stories and, as such, is bound to stimulate further discussion and reflection. * ERYL W. DAVIES, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament *
...this is a book pushes at the issues it raises in ways that linger, and that alone may commend it. * Sandra Gravett, Appalachian State University, Society of Biblical Literature *
Her ultimate conclusion is compelling: feminist readings of texts should be seeking to find ways to contend with stories of sexual violence in the Bible rather than simply retelling difficult stories. * M. M. Veeneman, CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8 *
In Texts After Terror, Graybill models a way of reading biblical texts that honors and reveals their complexity, and provides the next generation of feminist scholars, and really all biblical readers, a way to continue to engage critically and authentically with many of the Bible's most disturbing narratives. * Dr. Amy Kalmanofsky, Dean of List College and the Kekst Graduate School, The Jewish Theological Seminary *
Texts after Terror is a daring and devastating tour de force - raising new questions, evoking new feelings, and proposing new relations for what else and what comes after multiple forms of sexual harm. With characteristic wit and anger, breadth and incision, brilliance and ambivalence, Rhiannon Graybill takes biblical interpretation beyond the depressingly low bar of consent toward other possibilities. Grappling with these texts and their violences requires staying with their manifest troubles and refusing their redemption or recuperation. In this and many other ways, Texts after Terror is as unsettling as it is indispensable. * Joseph Marchal, Professor of Religious Studies, Ball State University *
Rhiannon Graybill shows herself a worthy inheritor of feminist biblical scholarship to build upon, poke holes in, push further, and complexify how rape tales have been read. Her "unhappy readings" of these tales take up feminist, queer, and strands of other theorization about sex, rape, rape culture, and power by reading through literature to situate the tales in the persistent misogyny that sadly still marks our own times. * Steed Vernyl Davidson, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, McCormick Theological Seminary *
Texts after Terror excels not only in its impactful contribution to ongoing development of scholarship in this area, but also in its stimulation of further critical dialogue around sexual violence in biblical texts. * Charlotte Thomas, University of Exeter, Modern Believing *
Awards
Winner of Co-Winner, Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion Textual Studies, American Academy of Religion.
Book Information
ISBN 9780197764114
Author Rhiannon Graybill
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 360g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 157mm * 15mm
