Here are 100 books that Rape Myths, the Bible, and #Metoo fans have personally recommended if you like Rape Myths, the Bible, and #Metoo. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives

Joy Schroeder Author Of Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation

From my list on sexual violence in the Bible.

Why am I passionate about this?

Joy Schroeder is a historian devoted to examining the experiences of women in Christianity and Judaism. With concern for female and male victims of violence, Schroeder scrutinizes historical documents to find accounts of harassment, rape, clergy sexual abuse, and other violence. She brings the historical accounts to light while critiquing the cultural patterns that perpetuate violence in our own day. In her work as a pastor and as a professor, she has worked to support victims of harassment, sexual violence, domestic violence, and child abuse. Schroeder is a professor of church history at Capital University (Columbus, Ohio), where she teaches at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and the department of religion and philosophy. 

Joy's book list on sexual violence in the Bible

Joy Schroeder Why Joy loves this book

Published in 1984, this book is an enduring classic. Filled with sympathy for victims and survivors, it is a groundbreaking, poignant feminist reading of biblical “texts of terror” about violence against women who were raped, enslaved, ritually sacrificed, or forced to become surrogate mothers. This book transformed the way people now read stories of biblical violence. It calls on readers to acknowledge and remember the suffering of victims—in biblical times and in our own. 

By Phyllis Trible ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Texts of Terror as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Professor Trible focuses on four variations upon the theme of terror in the Bible. By combining the discipline of literary criticism with the hermeneutics of feminism, she reinterprets the tragic stories of four women in ancient Israel: Hagar, Tamar, an unnamed concubine, and the daughter of Jephthah. In highlighting the silence, absence, and opposition of God, as well as human cruelty, Trible shows how these neglected stories interpreted in memoriam challenge both the misogyny of Scripture and its use in church, synagogue, and academy.


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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of Womanist Midrash

Joy Schroeder Author Of Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation

From my list on sexual violence in the Bible.

Why am I passionate about this?

Joy Schroeder is a historian devoted to examining the experiences of women in Christianity and Judaism. With concern for female and male victims of violence, Schroeder scrutinizes historical documents to find accounts of harassment, rape, clergy sexual abuse, and other violence. She brings the historical accounts to light while critiquing the cultural patterns that perpetuate violence in our own day. In her work as a pastor and as a professor, she has worked to support victims of harassment, sexual violence, domestic violence, and child abuse. Schroeder is a professor of church history at Capital University (Columbus, Ohio), where she teaches at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and the department of religion and philosophy. 

Joy's book list on sexual violence in the Bible

Joy Schroeder Why Joy loves this book

Inspired by midrashic approaches of rabbis who use storytelling to fill in the “gaps” in scriptural narratives, Dr. Wilda Gafney combines her expertise as a biblical scholar with her commitment to racial and gender justice. Gafney expresses particular sympathy for enslaved women forced into sexual servitude and surrogate motherhood, especially Rachel and Leah’s servants (“womb-slaves”) Bilhah and Zilpah (Genesis 30).

By Wilda C. Gafney ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Womanist Midrash as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Womanist Midrash is an in-depth and creative exploration of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. Using her own translations, Gafney offers a midrashic interpretation of the biblical text that is rooted in the African American preaching tradition to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Gafney employs a solid understanding of womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Near East. This unique and imaginative work is grounded in serious scholarship and will expand conversations about feminist and womanist biblical interpretation.


Book cover of Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible

Joy Schroeder Author Of Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation

From my list on sexual violence in the Bible.

Why am I passionate about this?

Joy Schroeder is a historian devoted to examining the experiences of women in Christianity and Judaism. With concern for female and male victims of violence, Schroeder scrutinizes historical documents to find accounts of harassment, rape, clergy sexual abuse, and other violence. She brings the historical accounts to light while critiquing the cultural patterns that perpetuate violence in our own day. In her work as a pastor and as a professor, she has worked to support victims of harassment, sexual violence, domestic violence, and child abuse. Schroeder is a professor of church history at Capital University (Columbus, Ohio), where she teaches at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and the department of religion and philosophy. 

Joy's book list on sexual violence in the Bible

Joy Schroeder Why Joy loves this book

Susanne Scholz says readers should consider biblical accounts of sexual violence to be “sacred witness” to the horrific reality of rape in the biblical world and in our own world. She proposes that we wrestle with the Bible’s words, including passages that depict God as a violent aggressor, and that we should read scriptural accounts in solidarity with victims, past and present.

By Susanne Scholz ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sacred Witness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Sacred Witness, Susanne Scholz discusses the wide range of rape texts in biblical literaturesome that long have troubled readers, others that should have but didn't, such as texts of marital rape, for example, or metaphorical speech about God as rapist. Assuming the androcentric nature of these writings, Scholz asks how we may read these texts in order to find some redemptive meaning for women, children, and men who have been injured by sexual violence and by cultures of rape. Sacred Witness provides illuminating reflection on some of the most troubling texts in the Hebrew Bible.


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Book cover of Retrieving the Future

Retrieving the Future by Randy C. Dockens,

Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.

Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…

Book cover of The Narrative of Rape in Genesis 34: Interpreting Dinah's Silence

Joy Schroeder Author Of Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation

From my list on sexual violence in the Bible.

Why am I passionate about this?

Joy Schroeder is a historian devoted to examining the experiences of women in Christianity and Judaism. With concern for female and male victims of violence, Schroeder scrutinizes historical documents to find accounts of harassment, rape, clergy sexual abuse, and other violence. She brings the historical accounts to light while critiquing the cultural patterns that perpetuate violence in our own day. In her work as a pastor and as a professor, she has worked to support victims of harassment, sexual violence, domestic violence, and child abuse. Schroeder is a professor of church history at Capital University (Columbus, Ohio), where she teaches at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and the department of religion and philosophy. 

Joy's book list on sexual violence in the Bible

Joy Schroeder Why Joy loves this book

The twelve sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob had a sister named Dinah who was abducted and raped by the son of a prince (Genesis 34). Dinah speaks no words in the biblical text. Caroline Blyth gives voice to Dinah by examining the words of modern women from around the globe, comparing Dinah’s experience with that of her modern-day sisters. With a poignant, sensitive reading of the Bible and the testimonies of women living today, Blyth exposes and rejects dangerous myths and stereotypes about sexual violence.

By Caroline Blyth ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Narrative of Rape in Genesis 34 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This innovative study explores the interconnectedness of ancient and current attitudes towards sexual violence, focusing upon the representation of rape in the biblical narrative of Genesis 34.

Caroline Blyth takes the reader on a journey through both biblical and contemporary cultures, contemplating the commonality and diversity of rape survivors' experiences across space and time. In particular, Blyth evaluates the insidious and pervasive influences of the cultural myths and misperceptions surrounding sexual violence, which have long served to deny rape survivors a voice with which to relate their narrative of suffering. Blyth examines whether such 'rape myths' are likewise given
voice…


Book cover of Teachable Monuments: Using Public Art to Spark Dialogue and Confront Controversy

Laura A. Macaluso Author Of Monument Culture: International Perspectives on the Future of Monuments in a Changing World

From my list on monuments in the era of controversies and removal.

Why am I passionate about this?

Laura A. Macaluso researches and writes about monuments, museums, and material culture. Interested in monuments since the 1990s, the current controversies and iconoclasm (monument removals) have reshaped society across the globe. She works at the intersection of public art and public history, at places such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

Laura's book list on monuments in the era of controversies and removal

Laura A. Macaluso Why Laura loves this book

Teachable Monuments is an expensive book, but it is also a book useful for integrating the work of scholars with teachers, using monuments to examine and create new meanings from monument culture via curriculum and classroom activities. The book comes after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a seismic event in the United States and abroad which hastened the removals of many Confederate and Columbus monuments, as well as monuments in Europe and beyond.

By Sierra Rooney (editor) , Jennifer Wingate (editor) , Harriet F. Senie (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Teachable Monuments as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Monuments around the world have become the focus of intense and sustained discussions, activism, vandalism, and removal. Since the convulsive events of 2015 and 2017, during which white supremacists committed violence in the shadow of Confederate symbols, and the 2020 nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, protesters and politicians in the United States have removed Confederate monuments, as well as monuments to historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Dr. J. Marion Sims, questioning their legitimacy as present-day heroes that their place in the public sphere reinforces.

The essays included in this anthology offer guidelines and case studies tailored for…


Book cover of Thomas Mann's War: Literature, Politics, and the World Republic of Letters

Peter Uwe Hohendahl Author Of Perilous Futures: On Carl Schmitt's Late Writings

From my list on German thought.

Why am I passionate about this?

Spending my childhood in Nazi Germany, the nature and the horrific consequences of Nazi ideology have occupied me as a student of German history and later as a teacher of intellectual and literary history. In 1933 Car Schmitt opted to support the Nazis. While he was banned from the public sohere in post-war Germany, his ideas remained influential on the far right and the far left, fortunately without significantly impacting the democratic reconstruction of West Germany. It was the growing international visibility of Schmitt’s writings that became my personal concern after 2000. In particular, Schmitt’s increasing influence in the United States energized me to reread and respond to his writings.

Peter's book list on German thought

Peter Uwe Hohendahl Why Peter loves this book

Most of us are familiar with or have at least heard of the novelist Thomas Mann, the author of Buddenbrooks (for which he received the Nobel Prize) and The Magic Mountain. He is less remembered for his important work as a public intellectual, as a formidable defender of liberal democracy and bold critic of Nazism during World War II. Tobias Boes’s lucid and well-researched study focuses on Mann’s critical contributions to the public discourse in the United States from 1938 until 1948, first as a refugee and later as an American citizen, through public lectures, numerous essays, and radio addresses. This is the fascinating story of a writer who started out as a German conservative and turned into Hitler’s most vocal critic. Thomas Mann’s War is a timely book, reminding us of what it meant to stand up for democracy and defeat Fascism in the 1940s and what it takes…

By Tobias Boes ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Thomas Mann's War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Thomas Mann's War, Tobias Boes traces how the acclaimed and bestselling author became one of America's most prominent anti-fascists and the spokesperson for a German cultural ideal that Nazism had perverted.

Thomas Mann, winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in literature and author of such world-renowned novels as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain, began his self-imposed exile in the United States in 1938, having fled his native Germany in the wake of Nazi persecution and public burnings of his books. Mann embraced his role as a public intellectual, deftly using his literary reputation and his connections in an increasingly…


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Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

What Walks This Way by Sharman Apt Russell,

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…

Book cover of Churchill and the Dardanelles

Matthew S. Seligmann Author Of Rum, Sodomy, Prayers, and the Lash Revisited: Winston Churchill and Social Reform in the Royal Navy, 1900-1915

From my list on Churchill’s First World War Navy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a British naval historian and winner of the Sir Julian Corbett Prize for Naval History. My main area of interest is the Anglo-German naval race before the First World War. I have written numerous books on this topic including Rum, Sodomy, Prayers, and the Lash Revisited: Winston Churchill and Social Reform in the Royal Navy, 1900-1915 (2018); The Naval Route to the Abyss: The Anglo-German Naval Race, 1895-1914 (2015); The Royal Navy and the German Threat, 1901-1914 (2012); Naval Intelligence from Germany (2007); and Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War (2006). 

Matthew's book list on Churchill’s First World War Navy

Matthew S. Seligmann Why Matthew loves this book

It is very difficult to say something new about the Dardanelles campaign and even harder to say something new about Winston Churchill, but without resorting to exaggeration or conspiracy theories, this book manages to do both. It offers a forensic examination of the background to the failed attempt to force the straits and a comprehensive survey of Churchill’s subsequent attempts to ensure that the re-telling of that failure did not rebound to his discredit. There is no better book on this topic.

By Christopher M. Bell ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Churchill and the Dardanelles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The failed naval offensive to force a passage through the Straits of the Dardanelles in 1915 drove Winston Churchill from office in disgrace and nearly destroyed his political career. For over a century, the Dardanelles campaign has been mired in myth and controversy. Many believe it was fundamentally misconceived and doomed to fail, while others see it as a brilliant concept that might have dramatically shortened the First World War and saved millions of lives.
Churchill is either the hero of the story, or the villain.

Drawing on a wide range of original documents, Christopher M. Bell shows that both…


Book cover of Space Craze: America's Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight

Matt Shindell Author Of For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet

From my list on human connection to space.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of the reasons I love my job as a Space History Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is that I am fascinated to learn how people think about space, the cosmos, and their human connection with the universe. I am always eager to get beyond questions of what we know and how we know it and ask: Why do we ask the questions we ask in the first place? The books I’ve listed here all explore our relationship with space and how we engage personally or collectively with space exploration.

Matt's book list on human connection to space

Matt Shindell Why Matt loves this book

In the 20th and 21st centuries, science fiction has been a major force in defining our collective imagination of what spaceflight is and why it is significant. This book puts the history of space science fiction in the context of the American space program, charting the reality of spaceflight against expectations set in popular culture.

Telling these parallel stories of real space accomplishments and fictional space exploits allows Weitekamp to reveal stories of spaceflight as inseparable from broad cultural concerns such as American identity, the frontier, race, gender, and sexuality. Weitekamp has spent her career curating the social and cultural history of spaceflight collection at the National Air and Space Museum, and her argument is built upon her expert analysis of popular culture objects from the collection. 

By Margaret A. Weitkamp ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Space Craze as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A space historian's tour through astounding spaceflight history and the Smithsonian's collection of space and science fiction memorabilia

Winner of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' 2024 Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award

Spanning from the 1929 debut of the futuristic Buck Rogers to present-day privatization of spaceflight, Space Craze celebrates America's endless enthusiasm for space exploration. Author Margaret Weitekamp, curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, writes with warmth and personal experience to guide readers through extraordinary spaceflight history while highlighting objects from the Smithsonian's spaceflight collection.

Featuring historical milestones in space exploration, films and TV shows,…


Book cover of War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

Why am I passionate about this?

I started my career teaching high school. I attended amazing professional development institutes, where scholars showed me how the stories I’d learned and then taught to my own students were so oversimplified that they had become factually incorrect. I was hooked. I kept wondering what else I’d gotten wrong. I earned a Ph.D. in modern US History with specialties in women’s and gender history and war and society, and now I’m an Associate Professor of History at Iowa State University and the Coordinator of ISU’s Social Studies Education Program. I focus on historical complexity and human motivations because they are the key to understanding change.

Amy's book list on books about twenteith-century U.S. History that make you rethink something you thought you already knew

Amy J. Rutenberg Why Amy loves this book

This book is probably the first scholarly book that blew my mind and pushed me to want to know what else I had always gotten wrong.

Where, like most people I know, I had always thought that the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor was just a thing that happened because of “war,” this book made it clear why it happened.

The US and Japan, both diplomats and everyday people, did not choose to understand each other. Different world views, different assumptions, and plain old racism led the US and Japan into a horrific, bloody conflict with long-lasting consequences.

By John W. Dower ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked War Without Mercy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • AN AMERICAN BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A monumental history that has been hailed by The New York Times as “one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States.”

In this monumental history, Professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War—race—while writing what John Toland has called “a landmark book ... a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan.”
 
Drawing on American and Japanese songs, slogans, cartoons, propaganda films, secret…


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Book cover of The Bridge: Connecting The Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking

The Bridge by Kim Hudson,

The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…

Book cover of Mourning Lincoln

Brian Matthew Jordan Author Of A Thousand May Fall: An Immigrant Regiment's Civil War

From my list on laying bare the human ordeal of the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War my entire life. As a boy, I met a man in my Ohio hometown who spent his own youth visiting with the last, wrinkled survivors of the Union armies. His memories at once made the Civil War real and immediate for me. I soon devoured every book and walked every battlefield I could find. After earning an undergraduate degree in Civil War Studies at Gettysburg College, I completed my Ph.D. at Yale. I have authored six books on the conflict—one of which was a runner-up for the Pulitzer in History—and teach courses on the Civil War at Sam Houston State University.   

Brian Matthew's book list on laying bare the human ordeal of the Civil War

Brian Matthew Jordan Why Brian Matthew loves this book

Before the past becomes history, it is lived in real-time by real people striving to understand it. From an avalanche of firsthand accounts, Hodes relates how Americans still reeling from civil war made sense of an unprecedented assassination. (Hint: they did so in a variety of ways, from expressions of grief and glee, from feelings of rage and resignation, from the margins of scrapbook pages to homespun mourning garb.) Hodes’ close and clever reading of sources recovers the anarchy and confusion of the Civil War’s aftermath.  

By Martha Hodes ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mourning Lincoln as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How did individual Americans respond to the shock of President Lincoln's assassination? Diaries, letters, and intimate writings reveal a complicated, untold story.
Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2015, and a long list finalist for the National Book Award "[A] lyrical and important new study."-Jill Lepore, New York Times Book Review
"Richly detailed and exquisitely written, . . . it immerses the readers in the world of 1865."-Anne Sarah Rubin, Journal of American History

The news of Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865, just days after Confederate surrender, astounded the war-weary…


Book cover of Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives
Book cover of Womanist Midrash
Book cover of Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible

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