Facing Trauma Through Art: Arab Women's War Narratives

Abstract

This thesis examines samples of fiction, visual art, and photography by Arab women as testimonies to wartime traumas suffered within their home nations. This thesis examines non-consensual photographic representations of sexual assault. Photographic representations of sexual assault impact how American culture not only sees but also treats survivors of sexual assault. These photographs, however, represent sexual assault, not assault survivors. Representations circulated by someone other than the survivor do not narrate her experience and may in fact risk silencing and suppressing her. Therefore, representations of sexual assault are most survivor-positive when they are created and distributed by the survivor herself Using the Steubenville rape case and Emma Sulkowicz's case, this thesis explores the risks that circulations of non-consensual representations can have on survivors.