Renee Heberle, Ph.D.

renee.heberle@utoledo.edu

University of Toledo

Address: 2801 Bancroft Street. MS 140

City: Toledoe, Ohio - 43606

Country: United States

About Me:

My fields of study is Political Theory and Feminist Political Theory. The areas I write about are sexual violence, feminist politics, and state violence as it takes particular form as and in prisons.I have edited or co-edited three volumes: Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno (Penn State Press 2006); Imagining Law: On Drucilla Cornell (with Ben Pryor 2008); Theorizing Sexual Violence (with Victoria Grace 2009). I have essays published in Hypatia, Law, Politics and Society, the Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory (2016) and the Oxford Handbook of Gender, Crime and Violence (2013). Forthcoming is "Can Masculinity Survive the End of Sexual Violence" in Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (Zubaan, New Delhi 2019). I teach courses on the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program (Temple University) model at the Toledo Correctional Institution and participate in a democratic organization with incarcerated and non-incarcerated alumni from those classes. We have a mission of furthering opportunities for higher education generally on the inside and educating the community on the outside about prisons.

Research Interests

Political Theory

Political Violence

Gender and Politics

Political Parties and Interest Groups

Class, Inequality, and Labor Politics

Prisons And Prisoners

Publications:

Journal Articles:

(2001) Law's Violence and the Challenge of the Feminine, elsevier

This essay examines capital murder cases involving female defendants. i look at these cases because, while they still constitute the exception to the rule, in these dramas over the life and death of women we can locate and critically examine some of society's most deeply felt and contradictory fears and expectations with respect to the status of femlninity and its impact on the social order.

(1996) Deconstructing Sexual Violence, Hypatia

This essay considers the social effects of the strategy of "speaking out" about sexual violence to transform rape culture. I articulate the paradox that women's identifica­tion as victims in the public sphere reinscribes the gendered norms that enable the victimization of women. I suggest we create a more diversified public narrative of sexual violence and sexuality within the context of the movement against sexual violence in order to deconstruct masculinist power in feminine victimization.

Books Written:

(2009) Theorizing Sexual Violence, Routledge

Taking sexual violence in the form of rape and hetero-psychological/physical abuse, trafficking, and harassment as a point of departure, the authors of this volume explore questions about the relationship between sex, sexuality and violence in order to better understand the terms on which women's sexual suffering is perpetuated, thereby undermining their capacity for personhood and autonomy. This volume perceives that while sexual violence as a phenomenon is heavily researched, it remains under-theorized. With anti-essentialist views of gender identity, of subjectivity and agency, and of rationality and consent, the essays study both the dynamics and consequences of sexual violence. The contributing authors blend the insights of postmodern critique with the common goal of theorizing and acting effectively against the material and psychic suffering perpetuated by the rigid rituals of gendered and sexed life.

(2006) Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno, Penn State University Press

Questions addressed in the volume range from dilemmas in feminist aesthetic theory to the politics of suffering and democratic theory. The essays are exemplary as works in interdisciplinary scholarship, covering a wide range of issues and ideas in feminism as authors critically interpret the many facets of Adorno’s work. They take Adorno’s historical situatedness as a scholar into consideration while exploring the relevance of his ideas for post-Enlightenment feminist theory. His philosophical and cultural investigations inspire reconsideration of Enlightenment principles as well as a rethinking of “postmodern” ideas about identity and the self.

Book Chapters:

(2016) The Personal is Political, Oxford University Press

This essay traces the history of and various meanings captured by the phrase “the personal is political” in the United States. It begins with the use of the phrase by young civil rights activists, tracks it through into the early days of feminism in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and highlights how it is related to the emergence of identity politics and the theorizing of difference within feminism. The essay closes with some observations about contemporary uses and abuses of the phrase by those who identify as feminists in the popular sphere.

(2013) Sexual Violence, Oxford University Press

This essay outlines social scientific and theoretical inquiries into sexual violence. It argues that sexual violence must be studied and responded to with a significantly different approach than other forms of violence. Sexual violence is immanently linked to gender differentiation and sexual difference. Therefore this essay focuses attention on how feminist scholars have theorized consent, desire, and identity in the context of understanding sexual violence. It traces the development of research and theorizing about sexual violence over the past forty years since the emergence of the antirape movement. The essay reviews historical, social science, and sociobiological research in the context of feminist theories that have influenced understanding of sexual violence.