The Literary Legacy Of Child Sexual Abuse

"This book examines the representation of child sexual abuse in five American novels written from 1850 to the present. The historical range of the novels shows that child sexual abuse is not a new problem, although it has been called by other names in other eras. The introduction explains what literature and literary criticism bring to persistent questions that arise when children are sexually abused. Psychoanalytic concepts developed by Freud, Ferenczi, Kohut, and Lacan inform readings of the novels. Theories of trauma, shame, psychosis, and perversion provide insights into the characters represented in the stories. Each chapter is guided by a difficult question that has arisen from real-life situations of child sexual abuse. Legal and therapeutic interventions respond with their disciplinary resources to these questions as they concern victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Literary criticism offers another analytic framework that can significantly inform those responses"--

This book examines the representation of child sexual abuse in five American novels written from 1850 to the present. The historical range of the novels shows that child sexual abuse is not a new problem, although it has been called by other names in other eras. The introduction explains what literature and literary criticism bring to persistent questions that arise when children are sexually abused. Psychoanalytic concepts developed by Freud, Ferenczi, Kohut, and Lacan inform readings of the novels. Theories of trauma, shame, psychosis, and perversion provide insights into the characters represented in the stories. Each chapter is guided by a difficult question that has arisen from real-life situations of child sexual abuse. Legal and therapeutic interventions respond with their disciplinary resources to these questions as they concern victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Literary criticism offers another analytic framework that can significantly inform those responses.

This document provides a review of recent, state-of-the-art literature concerning the nature, extent, dynamics, and effects of child sexual abuse and examines America's preventive intervention and treatment efforts for child sexual abuse. After an extensive presentation of the problems of defining terms in sexual abuse, these topics are discussed: (1) scope of the problem, including incidence of abuse; (2) dynamics of sexual abuse, focusing on perpetrators, intrafamilial child sexual abuse, and sexual exploitation; (3) effects of sexual abuse on children and families; (4) prevention education for parents, efforts for professionals, efforts targeted at children, and an evaluation of prevention efforts; (5) intervention; (6) the legal response to child sexual abuse, including statutes and legal intervention; and (7) treatment for victims and offenders. A 226-item reference list and a 30-item selected bibliography are included. (ABL)

- How widespread is child sexual abuse? - Which groups of children are at greatest risk? - Why do offenders offend? - What are the initial and long-term effects of sexual abuse on victims? - How can child sexual abuse be prevented? - How should researchers approach the problem? David Finkelhor is a leading researcher in the field of family violence and child sexual abuse. He is the author of two previous books on the subject, "Sexually Victimized Children "and "Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research." Finkelhor is also known for his work in other areas of family violence. He is a co-editor of "Dark Side of" Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Three decades ago doctors in Cleveland, a county in the northeast of England, identified a sexual abuse scandal that provoked a nationwide scandal in the United Kingdom. Pediatricians uncovered evidence of abuse in 121 children, but official investigations led to the majority of the charges being dismissed, with children returned to their families and the public reassured that there was no widespread abuse problem. In this revelatory book, Beatrix Campbell proves that the government inquiry that followed the scandal was a cover-up. Within days of its opening, experts had confirmed that 75% of the diagnoses had been correct, but ministers never revealed those findings to Parliament or the public. Instead, they discredited the doctors and social workers involved in a dangerous attempt to minimize scrutiny and criticism. The legacy of the Cleveland scandal lives today, even as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is underway. It began an era of skepticism and blame in child protection policy that put children's safety at risk, then and now.

The Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies considers the ways in which teachers and students are affected by our encounters with literature and other cultural texts in the higher education classroom. The essays consider the range of emotions and affects elicited by teaching settings and practices: those moments when we in the university are caught off-guard and made uncomfortable, or experience joy, anger, boredom, and surprise. Featuring writing by teachers at different stages in their career, institutions, and national or cultural settings, the book is an innovative and necessary addition to both the study of affect, theories of learning and teaching, and the fields of literary and cultural studies.

This book connects the aging woman to the image of God in the work of Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Alicia Ostriker, Lucille Clifton, Mary Szybist, and Anne Babson. It introduces a canon of contemporary American women’s spiritual literature with the goal of showing how this literature treats aging and spirituality as major, connected themes. It demonstrates that such literature interacts meaningfully with feminist theology, social science research on aging and body image, attachment theory, and narrative identity theory. The book provides an interdisciplinary context for the relationship between aging and spirituality in order to confirm that US women’s writing provides unique illustrations of the interconnections between aging and spirituality signaled by other fields. This book demonstrates that relationships between the human and divine remain a consistent and valuable feature of contemporary women’s literature and that the divine–human relationship is under constant literary revision.