[LCC] Roundtable on Teaching Rape Texts

[Ruby Blondell]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	For WCC: Roundtable on Teaching Rape Texts
Date: 	Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:34:42 -0500
From: 	Nancy Rabinowitz <nrabinow at hamilton.edu>

This roundtable is offered as a follow up to the Feminism and Classics V
conference discussion of teaching ancient texts about rape. There will
be sign-up sheets for roundtables at the meeting; we look forward to
seeing you all there.

"Teaching Rape in Classical Literature: Activism, Pedagogy, and the
American University."

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Amy Richlin (co-organizers)

Certain classical texts notoriously draw out students' responses from
their personal lives, and those of us who teach those works often end up
in delicate conversations with students.  The treatment of rape in Greek
myth, Ovid's Metamorphoses and in New Comedy frequently incites such
events; those who teach these texts must learn both to teach the
subjects with sensitivity in the classroom and to be prepared to discuss
them less publicly, for example during office hours.

  The predictability of this phenomenon, in which an ancient text about
rape brings a student to talk to a professor about a personal experience
of rape, leads us to think about the subject on a larger scale, as a
matter of both pedagogical preparation and professional ethics, and one
that is well-suited to a round-table discussion at the APA conference.

  Some of the questions we might raise include the following: What is the
responsibility of the faculty member in regards to campus problems such
as sexual assault? What can we do about those problems while maintaining
our proper professionalism? What is proper professionalism? Can we
address such issues in our courses without polarizing our classrooms?



-- 
Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz
Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature
Hamilton College
315-859-4149