Many people have been victims of rape, but we are all victims of what has been called a "rape culture." This topic deserves more attention towards education and prevention, and not just on the college campus. Rape culture is an idea that links rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society, and in which commonly-held beliefs, attitudes, and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape. This edited collection examines rape culture in the context of the current programming-attitudes, education, and awareness. Contributors explore changing the programming in terms of educational processes, practices, and experiences associated with rape culture across diverse cultural, historical, and geographic locations. The complexity of rape culture is discussed from a variety of contexts and perspectives, as this volume contains interdisciplinary academic submissions from educators and students, as well as experiential accounts from members of various community settings who are doing work aimed at making a positive difference towards programming change.

An in-depth treatment in two volumes of the historical and cultural contexts of rape and rape culture, this set discusses both victims and perpetrators internationally during war and peace times and examines the treatment of survivors. Historically, women, men, and children have all suffered sexual violence, during wartime and peacetime as well as inside and outside their homes. This two-volume title focuses on survivors of rape in a variety of social and cultural contexts. It examines different people who are victimized in a variety of situations (including in war and prisons) and studies the particularities of "rape cultures" that are intertwined with ethnic cultures and hatreds and other forms of conflictual social, political, and economic relations. In the introduction, the editors define rape and rape culture and provide historical and cultural context for the information presented throughout the volumes, the first of which primarily focuses on the causes and manifestations of rape cultures; the second considers the consequences of rape cultures for survivors of sexual assault. In both volumes, contributors provide case studies elucidating the experiences of a variety of victims—young, old, male, female, straight, and LGBT—in diverse locations around the world to help readers understand how truly pervasive and portentous rape culture is.

Situates the linkage between race and the death penalty in the history of the U.S. Since 1976, over forty percent of prisoners executed in American jails have been African American or Hispanic. This trend shows little evidence of diminishing, and follows a larger pattern of the violent criminalization of African American populations that has marked the country's history of punishment. In a bold attempt to tackle the looming question of how and why the connection between race and the death penalty has been so strong throughout American history, Ogletree and Sarat headline an interdisciplinary cast of experts in reflecting on this disturbing issue. Insightful original essays approach the topic from legal, historical, cultural, and social science perspectives to show the ways that the death penalty is racialized, the places in the death penalty process where race makes a difference, and the ways that meanings of race in the United States are constructed in and through our practices of capital punishment. From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State not only uncovers the ways that race influences capital punishment, but also attempts to situate the linkage between race and the death penalty in the history of this country, in particular the history of lynching. In its probing examination of how and why the connection between race and the death penalty has been so strong throughout American history, this book forces us to consider how the death penalty gives meaning to race as well as why the racialization of the death penalty is uniquely American.

Starting in the latter part of the 20th century, the law of sexual offenses, especially in the West, began to reflect a striking divergence. On the one hand, the law became significantly more punitive in its approach to sexual conduct that is nonconsensual, as evidenced by a major expansion in the definition of rape and sexual assault, and the creation of new offenses like sex trafficking, child grooming, and revenge porn. On the other hand, it became markedly more permissive in how it dealt with conduct that is consensual, a trend that can be seen, for example, in the legalization or decriminalization of sodomy, adultery, and adult pornography. This book explores the conceptual and normative implications of this divergence. At the heart of the book is a consideration of a deeply contested question: How should a liberal system of criminal law adequately protect individuals in their right not to be subjected to sexual contact against their will, while also safeguarding their right to engage in (private consensual) sexual conduct in which they do wish to participate? The book develops a framework for harmonizing these goals in the context of a wide range of nonconsensual, consensual, and aconsensual sexual offenses (hence, the "unified" nature of the theory) -- including rape and sexual assault in a variety of forms, sexual harassment, voyeurism, indecent exposure, incest, sadomasochistic assault, prostitution, bestiality, and necrophilia. Intellectually rigorous, fair-minded, and deeply humane, Criminalizing Sex offers a fascinating discussion of a wide range of moral and legal puzzles, arising out of real-world cases of alleged sexual misconduct - a discussion that is all the more urgent in the age of #MeToo.

We live in an ever-fragmenting society, in which distinctions between culture and nature, biology and politics, law and transgression, mobility and immobility, reality and representation, seem to be disappearing. This book demonstrates the hidden logic beneath this process, which is also the logic of 'the camp'. Social theory has traditionally interpreted the camp as an anomaly, as an exceptional site situated on the margins of society, aiming to neutralize its 'failed citizens' and 'enemies'. However, in contemporary society, 'the camp' has now become the rule and consequently a new interrogation of its logic is necessary. In this exceptional volume, the authors explore the paradox of the camp, as representing both an old fear of enclosure and a new dream of belonging. They illustrate their arguments by drawing on contemporary sites of exemption - such as refugee camps, rape camps and favelas - as well as sites of self-exemption including gated communities, party tourism and celebrity cultures.