Dramatizing Intimate Femicide: Petitions, Plays, and Public Engagement (with a Shakespearean Gloss)
Author(s)
Howe, Adrian
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2014
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This article discusses the author's current research project, an arts-based cultural intervention designed to shock audiences into registering intimate femicide as a first-order political problem in Western societies. Based on cases retrieved over the years from the English case law and recent cases unearthed by the most prolific of a new wave of feminist anti-violence bloggers, the project is pitched as an early educational intervention. A series of interactive learning modules in the form of theatre performances for schools invites young people to query the continuing legal and cultural salience of men's excuses for killing ...
View more >This article discusses the author's current research project, an arts-based cultural intervention designed to shock audiences into registering intimate femicide as a first-order political problem in Western societies. Based on cases retrieved over the years from the English case law and recent cases unearthed by the most prolific of a new wave of feminist anti-violence bloggers, the project is pitched as an early educational intervention. A series of interactive learning modules in the form of theatre performances for schools invites young people to query the continuing legal and cultural salience of men's excuses for killing "their" women. Shakespeare's many problematizations of possessive jealousy in men are enlisted to help highlight the long shadow that historically mandated male possessory rights over women still cast over criminal trials. The author argues for the continuing value of Foucauldian genealogies conceived as "counter-memories" for anti-violence feminist work. A case study of a specifically feminist forgetting of what is at stake in the representation and response to "family violence" cases underlines the magnitude of the task of shifting sympathy from perpetrators to victims.
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View more >This article discusses the author's current research project, an arts-based cultural intervention designed to shock audiences into registering intimate femicide as a first-order political problem in Western societies. Based on cases retrieved over the years from the English case law and recent cases unearthed by the most prolific of a new wave of feminist anti-violence bloggers, the project is pitched as an early educational intervention. A series of interactive learning modules in the form of theatre performances for schools invites young people to query the continuing legal and cultural salience of men's excuses for killing "their" women. Shakespeare's many problematizations of possessive jealousy in men are enlisted to help highlight the long shadow that historically mandated male possessory rights over women still cast over criminal trials. The author argues for the continuing value of Foucauldian genealogies conceived as "counter-memories" for anti-violence feminist work. A case study of a specifically feminist forgetting of what is at stake in the representation and response to "family violence" cases underlines the magnitude of the task of shifting sympathy from perpetrators to victims.
View less >
Journal Title
Canadian Journal of Women and the Law
Volume
26
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
Self-archiving of the author-manuscript version is not yet supported by this journal. Please refer to the journal link for access to the definitive, published version or contact the authors for more information.
Subject
Criminal Law and Procedure
Law