AustLit

'In this article I use a feminist autobiographical approach to present my ‘tattoo narrative’ as a gendered, embodied account in which I map out key moments in my life over two decades through the images inscribed on my skin. Specifically, I examine how my bodily modifications have magnified the social responses to my body as a woman. For example, as a teenager, I acquired a naval piercing and trendy ‘feminine’, discretely located tattoos to satisfy a heterosexual male gaze. In contrast, as a woman in my late thirties, my tattoos satisfy a different purpose. They are larger, bolder, and more ‘masculine’ in line with the evolution of my feminist politics. However, as an academic, the social responses to my tattoos are more complex. In class defined social spaces such as the university where I work, my tattoos cause trouble because they challenge gendered and classed norms for femininity. I conclude by calling for women to engage in autobiographical writing about bodily modification as a critical feminist political act.' (Publication abstract)

'This article evaluates rape–revenge narratives in literature, asking how written scenes of rape and revenge depict female bodies without relying on visual representations that replicate evidence-based investigations of the crime. It then examines how authors and readers may seek scriptotherapy through rape–revenge literature, both fiction and memoir. It takes up Elizabeth Grosz's theories of corporeal feminism, feminist criticism on rape–revenge by scholars such as Tara Roeder and criticism on scriptotherapy. Primary texts discussed include novels and memoirs by Barbara Wilson, Y. A. Erskine, Tara Moss, and Alice Sebold. The article positions the rape–revenge narrative through the prism of therapeutic reading and writing, and compares it to the current public responses to sexual assault in Australia. The article determines that rape–revenge narratives in literature are more nuanced than their filmic counterparts. Furthermore, it concludes that memoir can only act therapeutically in a one-on-one sense and has no greater public service to the treatment of rape victims, and is, therefore, no more therapeutic than rape–revenge fantasies.' (Publication abstract)