Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: a New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School November 2019 Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: A New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students Brianna Jerman University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Scholar Commons Citation Jerman, Brianna, "Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: A New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8036 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: A New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students by Brianna Jerman A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a concentration in Literature Department of English College of Arts & Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Diane Price Herndl, Ph.D John Lennon, Ph.D Susan Mooney, Ph.D Michelle Hughes Miller, Ph.D Date of Approval: 28 October 2019 Keywords: Sexual Assault, Teaching, Pedagogy, Empathy, Rape Narratives, Post-Modern Literature Copyright © 2019, Brianna Jerman DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my greatest friend and life partner, Mike Jerman, who was a responsible and empathetic witness to my story long before I knew what that meant and years before this dissertation took root, and who has continued to be an advocate, confidant, and inspiration over the past fourteen years. And to Adeline and Molly, may you learn to channel pain and heartbreak into hope and healing for others. And to our First Tiny Love, who forever impressed on me the importance of empathy, love, and self-care. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I cannot take credit for the entirety of this dissertation, as it would not have been possible without a number of people. First, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my committee. My director, Dr. Price-Herndl, has generously spent many laborious hours talking, reading, and advising. Her knowledge and support through all stages of the research and writing process have been of immeasurable value. I additionally appreciate her guidance on matters outside of this dissertation, especially related to health, motherhood, and balancing the demands of academia. To Dr. John Lennon, who challenged me and thus guided this project to a better place, I am grateful for his diverse perspective and questions. I have learned much from my time as his student and from our conversations about academia and work ethic. Dr. Susan Mooney, too, played a large role in this dissertation from its conception. Her course on masculinity prompted my interest in narrative portrayals of rape and their value, both realized and potential, to a larger discussion of sexual assault. She introduced me to Timothy Findley, whose novel, The Wars, not only appears in this dissertation but has become a personally loved work, and she recommended countless useful resources throughout my time writing. I also want to express my thanks to Dr. Michelle Hughes Miller for stepping in as a committee member later on in the process. I am grateful for her perspective on the future of this project as her course on research methods and methodology has informed multiple aspects of this dissertation and hopes for its implementation. I owe a debt of gratitude to many other professors and faculty members in the English department. The classes I took as a student helped prepare me for this endeavor, and I must make special mention of Dr. Laura Runge, whose course on teaching literature provided a foundation for the pedagogical approaches in this dissertation; and of Dr. Elizabeth Hirsh, whose course on trauma theory helped me both personally and professionally to understand the impacts and manifestations of trauma. I want to thank the English Department for allowing me the privilege of teaching while completing this degree, and Dr. Phillip Sipiora and Dr. David Pringle for trusting me to assist in their classroom and with their research projects. I have learned much about teaching through trial and error and the gracious responses of them both. Further, this document would not exist without the support and encouragement of my family. From my grandparents and parents who founded my love of reading, to my children who help reinscribe this love each time we read together, each of them has played a role in fostering this passion. They have also provided motivation, comfort, and joy in the form of words, food, and affection. I must also single out my parents, Nancy and Michael Dougherty who selflessly worked so my siblings and I could achieve a level of education they did not. Their persistence that we study, work hard, and make school our job growing up maybe worked too well, as I’ve now been in school twenty-eight years of my life. Joking aside, I am thankful to have had such patient, generous, and understanding parents. I am especially thankful to my only family member by choice, my husband Michael Jerman, for his encouragement, support, and immense patience. We have known each other for fourteen years and have been married for ten, and there has not been a day during this time that I haven’t been a student. The weight of earning a PhD while raising a family was shared by Mike. He ceaselessly provided for our family while I focused on completing this project; listened to my complaints and anxieties in equal proportion to my joys and ruminations; and endured the fallout of my scattered mind when the house was a mess, the kids weren’t bathed, and the car was out of gas. He also voluntarily read and provided feedback on each chapter of this project. He remains my greatest cheerleader. Finally, I am especially indebted to survivors of sexual assault who have bravely spoken about their experiences as victims. I had many reasons to abandon this project: it is emotionally difficult and exhausting to engage with stories of trauma, both real and fictional; there are fears I’m asking readers too much; my knowledge of trauma theory has made me aware of the possibility of triggering or retraumatizing the very people I’m hoping to help; people have said that my choice to write about rape makes them uncomfortable; and I wonder how it will be received by a more general audience. But each time I’ve nearly resolved to end this project, something—the publication of a story about a prominent director sexually assaulting actors or of a convicted rapist sentenced only to probation—proves the work set out in this dissertation is necessary. I want to thank the many friends and acquaintances who shared their experiences of sexual trauma with me personally. An unexpected and unintentional byproduct of writing about this topic is that it presents as an invitation for people to tell me their stories. For each of these people, I am so thankful and feel so honored that I could be a witness. This charge was almost always heavy but these stories provided constant motivation to look to a better future and try to be a part of its foundation. I thus owe this finished project to the men and women whose stories encouraged me to keep writing. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................v Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Instilling Victim Empathy Through Rape Narratives .................................................16 Current Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Strategies ............................................19 A Case for Empathy ...........................................................................................................23 If and How Empathy Can Be Taught .................................................................................28 Using Literature to Teach Empathy ...................................................................................34 Using Literature in Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Education..........................43 Chapter 2: Historicizing Victim Blaming Tendencies and Challenging Implicit Bias: Rape Myths in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman .............................................50 The Trial of Emile de La Ronciere and the Initiation of Victim Blaming Culture ............55 Sarah as a Casualty of a Victim Blaming Culture ............................................................65 The Interpretive Impact of Fowles’ Three Endings ..........................................................72 The First Ending ....................................................................................................73 The Second Ending ................................................................................................75 The Third Ending ...................................................................................................82 Reading Sarah Through Fowles’ Selectively Omniscient Narrator ...................................83