Complicating Consent: A Study of the Rhetorical Strategies Employed to Interrupt Rape Myths in the Prosecutor v. Kunarac
Issue Date
2010-08-31Author
Shook, Lindsey
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
84 pages
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
M.A.
Discipline
Communication Studies
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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Show full item recordAbstract
The justices in the trial of the Prosecutor v. Kunarac were able to interrupt the rape myths that generally exist in rape trials by complicating the notion of consent. In this paper I argue that the justices de-naturalize common myths about consent by relying on the details of victim testimony and the context of the war to fill in the gaps between testimony and lived experience. Rather than allowing rape myths like "she asked for it" to explain the complicated stories of sexual violence during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina the justices use a new definition of rape that broadens consent to allow more of the contextual details of the war and each attack to count as valid evidence.
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- Communication Studies Dissertations and Theses [275]
- Theses [3942]
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