Responding to Rape – Panel Debrief from the 2024 OAH Conference on American History

Over the past two decades, scholars have begun to document the centrality of sexual assault in the U.S. political landscape. There has been significant research on how sexual assault (and anti-rape activism) shaped the long civil rights movement, military occupations, and the dynamics of modern feminism. However, scholars are only recently considering how the politics surrounding sexual assault have defined major state institutions, i.e., the military and the prison system. Likewise, stories of anti-rape activism and community organizing are often overshadowed by narratives that emphasize courtroom dramas and legal proceedings. In this episode, , Ruth Lawlor, R.M. Douglas, Catherine Jacquet, and Jana Lipman demonstrate the necessity of incorporating sexual assault, and activists’ resistance to it, in our understanding of 20th century institutions.

Read more about the session here: https://www.oah.org/conferences/oah24/sessions__trashed/session/?id=5218

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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