#MeToo and Literary Studies: Reading, Writing, and Teaching about Sexual Violence and Rape Culture

433 Pages·2021·3.852 MB·English

by  Mary K. Holland (editor), Heather Hewett (editor)

PRAISE FOR #METOO AND LITERARY STUDIES
“Mary K. Holland and Heather Hewett’s #MeToo and Literary Studies is
a tour de force, a groundbreaking gathering of feminist scholars who
have committed themselves to exposing, contextualizing, and challenging
the ongoing trauma of sexual violence in popular culture and literature.
Spanning antiquity to our current age, this book maps how artists, activists,
and academics have both grappled with the devastating reality of sexual
assault, while also imagining beyond the trauma and giving us a collective
way forward. #MeToo and Literary Studies is an urgent, transformative, and
mandatory read.”
—SALAMISHAH TILLET, Henry Rutgers Professor of African
American Studies and Creative Writing, Rutgers University,
Newark, USA, and author of In Search of the Color
Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece
“The essays in this exciting collection by a diverse group of feminist
scholars make the case that the study of literature is also a performance of
activism. #MeToo and Literary Studies charts representations of rape culture
across geographies both local and global, and wide-ranging texts from
communities subjected to sexual violence. The book persuasively demonstrates
how literature freshly analyzed through critically engaged writing and
innovative pedagogies can lead to radical social change. A crucial anthology
for our dark times.”
—NANCY K. MILLER, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative
Literature, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA,
and author of My Brilliant Friends: Our Lives in Feminism
“#MeToo and Literary Studies provides a crucial, fascinating, and truly
comprehensive deep dive into the vexed relationship between rape culture and
literary texts spanning over two thousand years, from Ovid to Jaquira Díaz. The
breadth of perspectives canvassed—and interrogated—makes it a breathtaking
feat, and a highly necessary volume, for any feminist thinker.”
—KATE MANNE, Associate Professor of Philosophy,
Cornell University, USA, and author of Entitled:
How Male Privilege Hurts Women
“#MeToo is a powerful hashtag, rallying cry, and cudgel. But
lasting change requires association, deep thinking, and nuance—
and for that, we turn to literature. #MeToo and Literary
Studies beautifully demonstrates how writers have been describing the
realities of sexual violence for decades, and how literary analysis can
help provoke meaningful transformation of rape culture.”
—JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER, writer, activist, editor, and
publisher; director of It Was Rape and co-author of Manifesta
“This collection of timely, wide-ranging, and diverse essays demonstrates
the power of #MeToo to reframe prior debates and silences in literary
studies. The editors make a compelling case for #MeToo storytelling
as part of a long history of representing sexual violence in literature.
The essays interweave literary studies, social activism, and pedagogy
in generative new readings. #MeToo and Literary Studies is essential
reading and invaluable equipment for scholars, teachers, and students
engaging with rape culture, misogyny, and literature.”
—LEIGH GILMORE, Visiting Professor of English, The Ohio State
University, USA, and author of Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What
Women Say About Their Lives
“Fighting rape culture starts with making it visible. #MeToo and
Literary Studies does that and so much more. It uses literature to expose
the cultural normalization of sexual violence and finds in pedagogy the
building blocks necessary to produce a viable alternative. It is scholarly
activism at its best.”
—CARINE MARDOROSSIAN, Professor of English and Global
Gender Studies, University at Buffalo, NY, USA and author of
Framing the Rape Victim: Gender and Agency Reconsidered
“#MeToo and Literary Studies belongs in every English department
in middle schools, high schools, and in higher education. It should be
read and discussed by English teachers in department meetings across
the school year and every year. Wholly committed to intersectionality
and dismantling systems of domination and power, each chapter offers
starting points for addressing sexual violence, rape, and harassment in not
only literature but also in our schools, universities, and communities. As a
high school English teacher who has been in the classroom for nearly 25
years addressing sexual violence both pedagogically and institutionally, I
wish I had had this book much sooner in my work as a feminist teacher-
activist. I can keep fighting the good fight now that this book exists.”
—ILEANA JIMÉNEZ, founder of Feminist Teacher, @feministteacher
#MeToo and
Literary Studies
Reading, Writing, and
Teaching about
Sexual Violence
and Rape Culture
Edited by Mary K. Holland
and Heather Hewett
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks
of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in the United States of America 2021
Copyright © Mary K. Holland and Heather Hewett, 2021
Each chapter Copyright © by the contributor, 2021
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on pp. xii–xiii constitute an extension
of this copyright page.
Cover design by Alice Marwick
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-7274-2
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For survivors,
readers,
writers, and
teachers
everywhere
vi
CONTENTS
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction: Literary Studies as Literary Activism
Heather Hewett and Mary K. Holland 1
PART I: Critical Practices
1 “Dismissed, trivialized, misread”: Re-examining
the Reception of Women’s Literature through the
#MeToo Movement
Janet Badia 31
2 Reading Survivor Narratives: Literary Criticism as
Feminist Solidarity
Tanya Serisier 43
3 Evoking the Specter of White Feminism in the
#MeToo Movement: Publishing Memoirs and the
Cultural Memory of American Feminism
Amanda Spallacci 57
4 Pricing Black Girl Pain: The Cost of Black Girlhood
in Street Lit
Jacinta R. Saffold 71
5 From #MMIW to #NotInvisible: Indigenous
Women in the #MeToo Era
Kasey Jones-Matrona 83
viii CONTENTS
6 Credibility and Doubt in the Age of #MeToo
Namrata Mitra and Katherine Conner 99
7 Quite Possibly the Last Essay I Need to Write about
David Foster Wallace
Mary K. Holland 113
PART II: Re-readings
8 Philomela’s Tapestry and #MeToo: Reading Ovid in
an Indian Feminist Classroom
Aditi Joshi, Anushka Srivastava, Katyayani,
Mahwash Akhter, Prasanta Bani Ekka, Shivangi
Tiwary, Shweta, and Zahanat 135
9 “Beware of the delusions of fancy!”: Silencing and
Rape Culture in Hannah Webster Foster’s The
Coquette
Hannah Herndon 151
10 “Fearful of being pursued, yet determined to
persevere”: Northanger Abbey and the #MeToo
Movement
Douglas Murray 163
11 The Limits of #MeToo in India: Re-reading Bapsi
Sidhwa’s Cracking India and Deepa Mehta’s Earth
Nidhi Shrivastava 175
12 Intimate Violence and Sexual Assault in Kopano
Matlwa’s Coconut: Carving Spaces of Feminist
Liberation in Post-Apartheid South African
Literature
Nafeesa T. Nichols 187
13 The Other Men of #MeToo: Male Rape in Hanya
Yanagihara’s A Little Life, Sapphire’s The Kid, and
Amber Tamblyn’s Any Man
Robin E. Field 199
CONTENTS ix
14 Reading Junot Díaz after Me Too and #MeToo
Ann Marie Alfonso Short 211
PART III: Pedagogy: Practices and Methods
15 Beyond Safe Spaces: Working toward Access and
Accountability Using Trauma-Informed Pedagogy
Maureen McDonnell 225
16 Trigger Warnings: An Ethics for Tutoring #MeToo
Content and Rape Narratives in Writing Centers
Beth Walker 235
17 From Sympathy to Detoxification: Pedagogical
Approaches for Dismantling Rape Culture
Jeremy Posadas 245
18 Theorizing “Toxic” Masculinity across Cultures and
Nations: The Case of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
Heather Hewett 259
19 “I said nothing”: Teaching Corregidora and Black
Women’s Relationship to Consent
Carlyn Ferrari 275
20 “Teach as if you aren’t afraid of getting fired”: A
Queer Survivor’s Use of Restorative Justice Circles
to Embrace Vulnerability in the Classroom
Sarah Goldbort 287
21 Praxis of Empowerment: Latina Decolonial Feminist
Pedagogy and Jaquira Díaz’s Ordinary Girls
Roberta Hurtado 297
PART IV: Pedagogy: Classroom Contexts
22 Teaching the #MeToo Memoir: Creating Empathy
in the First-Year College Classroom
Elif S. Armbruster 311