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This book focuses on rape narratives as grounding for western thinking about community - from the polis to nation-states - specifically in cultures of thinking , reading , and writing . The author rethinks rape, or sexual violence, through a close examination of how rape is a pedagogy that has become canonized in the form of rape stories.

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The Basement: Towards A Re-Introduction PART I: BROACHING THE ABJECT How To Think, To Read, To Write Rape? Thinking, Reading, Writing Rape PART II: OEDIPAL PLACES AND CASSANDRAIC CHORA Oedi-Pedagogy Canon, Obsessive/Hysteric PART III: FROM THE ATTIC AND BASEMENT TO THE LIVING ROOM Virtual Rape and Community Excursus. Rebeginnings, from Architecture to AnArchitexture

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"Sexual Violence in Western Thought and Culture is Vitanza´s attempt to work through the complexities of sexual violence as a cultural practice that pervades Western thinking, reading, and writing. ... anyone who thinks, reads, and writes about Western civilization in any capacity would be well served by reading it. The analysis of writing and thought in Western civilization make it particularly relevant to scholars of rhetoric, philosophy, media, trauma, rape, and rape culture." (Ryan Skinnell, enculturation, enculturation.net, May, 2016)

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Victor J. Vitanza is a Professor of English and Rhetorics at Clemson University, USA.

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