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JOANNA BOURKE

Blogs
Here are my latest blogs! Enjoy.


Sexual Violence Research Instigates Change
Caption: Reception for the Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence. Left to right: Professor Joanna Bourke, Julia...
Jun 15, 20243 min read
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SHaME's End of Grant Report
I loved working with the SHaME (Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters) team over 5 and a half years. SHaME’s Public Engagement Lead, Dr...
Jun 15, 20241 min read
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Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence
The events I have enjoyed most in connection with the SHaME project were our two Shameless! Festivals of Activism Against Sexual...
Apr 24, 20241 min read
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SHaME: Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters
For five and a half years, I have been privileged to work with the SHaME team at Birkbeck. It has been the most intellectually rewarding...
Apr 24, 20241 min read
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Rape (a very very short history)
We are never told her name. None of the soldiers encircling her would have been interested in such niceties. The only relevant...
Feb 6, 20244 min read
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Cruelty: Pain, War, Sexual Abuse
The three sites of cruelty I will explore are (firstly) hierarchies of sentience, (secondly) wartime wounding, and (thirdly) sexual...
Feb 6, 202421 min read
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Imkaan, Intersectionality, and Sexual Violence
On 4 March 2020, the Black feminist organisation Imkaan launched a report in the Houses of Parliament on sexual violence against...
Feb 5, 20243 min read
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Medical Professionals and Sexual Violence
On 12 June 1993, the editors of the British Medical Journal published an account by a male doctor of being sexually assaulted by another...
Feb 5, 20246 min read
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Domestic Violence, Firearms, and Covid-19
Covid-19 exposed girls, women, and other minoritised groups to increased domestic violence. As has happened throughout the world, calls...
Feb 5, 20242 min read
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Rape Kits and the 'Technoscientific Witness of Rape'
Andrea Quinlan’s 2017 book The Technoscientific Witness of Rape: Contentious Histories of Law, Feminism, and Forensic Science ...
Feb 5, 20242 min read
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A (very short) Global History of Sexual Violence
This is a short piece from my book, Disgrace (Reaktion Books, 2022) Sexual violence: it is a difficult subject to talk about. There is...
Feb 5, 202421 min read
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Sexual Assault: The Courtroom
Review of Heather R. Hlavka and Sameena Mulla’s Bodies in Evidence. Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication (New York:...
Jan 3, 20245 min read
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