FLP is joined by author, educator and curator Catherine McCormack for this timely, shocking yet essential lecture…
CLASS DESCRIPTION
‘Mythological rape' is an ubiquitous theme in the history of western art, so much so that visitors to European art collections are more likely to encounter images of violence against women, than images produced by women themselves. In classical mythology gods rape mortal women with impunity, and classical history is littered with tales of women's forced sexual submission to powerful men in the service of political ideals. These stories have served as fodder for decorative paintings for elite audiences as well as instructional images intended to curb and police female behaviour.
This lecture will examine the way in which cultures of gender based violence are normalised and aestheticized in high art, art history, and wider popular culture, and ask how this tradition might contribute to a broader cultural silencing and tolerance of rape culture and domestic violence. We will look at how feminist artists from the 1970s such as Suzanne Lacey, Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, Yoko Ono and Margaret Harrison to contemporary artists Laia Abril, Wilma Woolf, Jesse Mockrin and Emma Sulkowicz have subverted culture's heroic rape narrative to find a way of representing sexual violence and, aspects of female experience that have often been unspeakable. Finally we will consider the implications of an image culture saturated with depictions of female suffering and ask how things might be different if we were more familiar with images of female pleasure and joy.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Catherine is an author, educator, and independent curator. She has held teaching positions at University College London, University of Oxford and Sotheby's Institute of Art, and is a regular contributor to Radio 4 Front Row and The New European newspaper as a critic. Her books include Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking, and The Art of Looking Up. She is currently writing a book on women artists and activism.
INSTAGRAM: @womeninthepicture
SPRING TERM 2025
Monday 20th January
Margot Mifflin (she/her)
Beauty Pageants: On Ideal Womanhood and National Identity
Monday 27th January
Verity Babbs (she/her)
Divergent Minds: Female Neurodiversity in Art and Art History
Monday 3rd February
Vex Ashley (she/her)
The Body And The Screen: Sexuality Against The Machine
Monday 10th February
Luisa-Maria MacCormack (she/her)
Holy Hags: Sinners and Sheela Na Gigs - RECORDING ONLY
Monday 17th February
Dr. Kimberley Baltzer-Jaray (she/they)
Women Who Kill: Gender Bias And Murder
Monday 24th February
Alekszandra Rokvity (she/her)
Medical Misogyny: Endometriosis as a Feminist Issue
Monday 3rd March
Catherine McCormack (she/her)
Piercing the Silence: Art History and Sexual Violence
Monday 10th March
Jennifer Anyan (she/her)
The Madonna Whore Dichotomy: Motherhood And Sexual Agency
Monday 17th March
Alyssa Velazquez (she/her)
Spawn: The Fantasy Of Women's Right To Choose
Monday 24th March
Leanne Yau (she/they)
Radical Connection Through Relationship Anarchy
Monday 31st March
Dr. Noam Yadin Evron (she/her)
By Hook or by Crook: Abortions in the Middle Ages
Monday 7th April
Lucy Cooke (she/her)
Bitch: On The Female Of The Species
Monday 14th April
Anna Souter (she/her)
Plant Parenthood: A Potted History Of Vegetal Reproduction And (M)Otherhood
Monday 21st April
Luisa-Maria MacCormack (she/her)
Feminism And The Ice Age - RECORDING ONLY
Monday 28th April
Elora Shehabuddin (she/her)
Muslim Women and the Global Politics of Feminism
RECORDING
A recording of the lecture will be sent out by The Feminist Lecture Program after the event finishes, within 2 hours of the end of the class. This email will also contain any resources/reading list the lecturer shares.
Please add hello@feministlectureprogram.com to your email contacts to ensure you receive the recording as expected.
Please note that the recording will expire 7 days after sending.
PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Everyone is welcome to join this Pay-What-You-Can class. We suggest a donation of £20, however, we understand that may not be possible for everybody. Please be honest and pay what you can afford so that we can continue to offer our sessions on a donation basis.
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And that's it!
We're really looking forward to you joining us x