Thesis
Complexity, complicity, and consent : sexual violence in contemporary English and French literature and film
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2024
- Thesis identifier
- T16904
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 202067336
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- In this thesis I explore literature and film in English and French that features sexual violence. The primary examples here are contemporary, ranging from 2014 to 2022. I identify these texts as emerging from a ‘long’ 2010s characterised by media discourse about sexual violence. In this long decade, discourses which positioned Anglo-American and French sexual cultures as in fundamental tension also circulated. Literature and film are understood here as key sites in which ideas about sexual violence and cultural difference are (re)produced. Applying an intermedial and intercultural lens, the research uses feminist scholarship on literature, film, media, sexual violence and #MeToo to contribute to the field of feminist cultural studies. I argue that the discourses associated with #MeToo have existed in literature and film before and after the chronological touchpoints of 2017 and 18. There are 14 texts here that represent a range of concerns. All engage with ideas about complexity, complicity, consent, and speaking out that dominated the long 2010s, as well as #MeToo and its backlash. The cultural tensions exemplified by the 100-women tribune (2018) are engendered – and, importantly, dispelled – in several of the examples. In this sense, many of the text’s ‘anticipate’ #MeToo, and its backlash, in a way that undercuts claims to primacy or newness. Similarly, the comparison between English and French texts reveals that cultural products respond in a less polarised way to sexual violence than a text like the 100-women tribune initially suggests. However, French texts do frequently engage anglicised, as well as specifically French, discourses. Two chapters are devoted to texts that respond directly to #MeToo, and two explore texts where it is not a direct referent. The work here contributes to an understanding of #MeToo as an accumulation of feminist theorising and scholarship on sexual violence. Using textual examples as case studies facilitates a view of #MeToo as part of a wider moment with regards to sexual violence and culture.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Boyle, Karen
- Verdier, Caroline
- Resource Type
- Note
- Previously held under moratorium from 26 April 2024 until 27 April 2026.
- DOI
Relations
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