University literature courses containing material that could be triggering for rape and sexual assault survivors

[GlitteringTree]

I have NC for this
A lot of great literature contains descriptions of rape or allusions to it.
Statistically, many students who will be required to study it are likely to have experienced sexual assault or rape, but will be expected to respond to it analytically in essays and exams.

I was wondering how people think universities should deal with the difficulties that might arise from this in a sensitive way that would not require courses devoid of the literature in question?

Broadly agree Sparrowhawk. But I would feel uncomfortable about banning or suppressing a book at university - not that this is what you are suggesting.

Also agree that nobody should be forced to read Lolita. Although this would be a big omission if you were studying 20 century Russian lit and wanted to be fully informed.

The subject matter shouldn't be allowed to stand alone or unchallenged by other authors if/when troubling classics are taught. I would feel the same about any Nazi literary appropriation of Jewish experience. Teach them if they're considered important in the technical/historical/literary context, but not without other perspectives on the subject matter. And not without allowing people to opt out.

The 'women's studies' and chicklit pigeonholing of female authors is horrifying, I agree. It's an absolute tragedy that half of human talent and experience has been ignored and wasted over the centuries.

"Modules looking at how men and women write differently about rape would be an excellent class. "

Yes, absolutely. And relevant to literature in almost any language or historical context!

'Literature' itself is largely a sham - it's men talking about men's experiences with utter conviction that that's the right way to view the world. Hence, rape is portrayed as a deserved punishment, something that can't be helped, a man's desire overwhelming him, an unremarkable occurrence with a faceless victim. When women do actually feature in depictions of rape they are peripheral - their voices aren't heard, their experiences are largely absent or described for them in terms that make it clear that the (male) writer has the first clue what he's on about. The female victim is either deserving of what she got or weak and fragile and broken by her experience. She isn't really a human being at all. These depictions are one of the sources of the rape myths that persist today - up until relatively recently society had no understanding (or any desire to have an understanding) of women's actual experiences and responses to rape - it was just assumed for example that a raped woman would fall to bits, when in fact a lot of victims have complex coping mechanisms that include befriending or even having a relationship with their attacker. The screaming crying victim is a male fiction - many rape victims are quiet and dissociated. The rape victim isn't doomed by her experiences - with help she can recover and just be the ordinary person she always was (rather than the fragile wronged flower or the fallen woman).

Male depictions of rape are so much nonsense - the only way in which they should be studied is to illustrate what utter tripe they are.

That utter arsewipe Martin Amis commented some years ago that women enjoy being raped and his novels certainly reflect his utter contempt for women. I don't think women should have to read fiction from an author who hates them and thinks they deserve and enjoy sexual violence. Or if they do read his excrement it should be to examine the way in which 'literature' supports and encourages rapists.

I read Lolita aged 17 and found it titillating. I think I thought it made me look clever and sexy somehow.

I then wrote a dissertation on Nabokov's lectures on literature and Russian literature.

He calls a Dickens character "a dingy nymphet".

I had low self esteem I guess.

Now I agree with Sparrowhawk. I'm bored of studying how men feel about their violent behaviour.