Saturday 28th April 2007

This symposium emerges from the failure of feminism in theorising rape. It seems to have been left to women writers to interrogate the representation of women and rape and this symposium aims to analyse how these writers have subverted terms such as ‘victim’, ‘experience’, ‘survivor’, ‘active’ and ‘passive’.

This symposium aims to bridge ‘academic’ and ‘creative’ approaches to literature with a fully integrated range of activities. The keynote speaker, Dr. Ananya Jahanara Kabir of University of Leeds, will be speaking on the politics and polemics of how rape is represented in contemporary South Asia. Her talk is titled: 'Double Violation? (Not)Talking about Rape in Contemporary South Asia'. There will be two panels of speakers on the topic of women writing rape. In addition, there will be a reading of cutting-edge creative work by the novelist Patricia Duncker and a creative writing workshop. The workshop leader, Zoë Brigley is a member of the Warwick Writing Programme where she teaches on The Practice of Poetry and Modes of Writing. The workshop will include a variety of stimuli including media articles, sound recordings and film clips to encourage the delegates to undermine stereotypical positioning of men and women in predatory and submissive roles.

The event is being organised by Sorcha Gunne and Zoe Brigley. The funding for this symposium has been provided by the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association (FWSA), and from within the University of Warwick, by the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, the Centre for Caribbean Studies and the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender.

Website: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/events/fwsa/
Blog: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/women-writing-rape