In an era of backlash and supposed stagnation, feminist philosophers are still providing fresh and challenging perspectives - you just have to know where to look. Continental feminist theory continues to address pressing questions of equality and difference, identity and subjectivity. Modern thinkers such as Judith Butler, Kelly Oliver and Drucilla Cornell present strikingly new perspectives on sex, gender, sexual politics and the various social apparatuses that underlie gender inequality. Yet their theories are not always well received. This work is a response to the marginalization of these modern thinkers. In this volume, Ann J. Cahill and Jennifer Hansen collect the most groundbreaking work of the theorists. In their introductory pieces, Cahill and Hansen translate the often esoteric and mystifying work of the women in Continental philosophy to those outside the field and outside academia. With these essays, Continental Feminism Reader begins the process of reanimating feminist politics through the critical tool of its contributors.

Rape, claims Ann J. Cahill, affects not only those women who are raped, but all women who experience their bodies as rapable and adjust their actions and self-images accordingly. Rethinking Rape counters legal and feminist definitions of rape as mere assault and decisively emphasizes the centrality of the body and sexuality in a crime which plays a crucial role in the continuing oppression of women.

Rethinking Rape applies current feminist theory to an urgent political and ethical issue. Cahill takes an original approach by reading the subject of rape through the work of such recent continental feminist thinkers as Luce Irigaray, Elizabeth Grosz, Rosi Braidotti, and Judith Butler, who understand the body as fluid and indeterminate, a site for the negotiation of power and resistance. Cahill interprets rape as an embodied, sexually marked experience, a violation of feminine bodily integrity, and a pervasive threat to the integrity and identity of a woman's person.

The wrongness of rape, which has always eluded legal interpretation, cannot be defined as theft, battery, or the logical extension of heterosexual sex. It is not limited to a specific event, but encompasses the myriad ways in which rape threatens the prospect of feminine agency. As an explication that fully countenances women's experiences of their own bodies, Rethinking Rape helps point the way toward reparation, resistance, and the evolution of feminine subjectivity.

Rape, claims Ann J. Cahill, affects not only those women who are raped, but all women who experience their bodies as rapable and adjust their actions and self-images accordingly. Rethinking Rape counters legal and feminist definitions of rape as mere assault and decisively emphasizes the centrality of the body and sexuality in a crime which plays a crucial role in the continuing oppression of women.

Rethinking Rape applies current feminist theory to an urgent political and ethical issue. Cahill takes an original approach by reading the subject of rape through the work of such recent continental feminist thinkers as Luce Irigaray, Elizabeth Grosz, Rosi Braidotti, and Judith Butler, who understand the body as fluid and indeterminate, a site for the negotiation of power and resistance. Cahill interprets rape as an embodied, sexually marked experience, a violation of feminine bodily integrity, and a pervasive threat to the integrity and identity of a woman's person.

The wrongness of rape, which has always eluded legal interpretation, cannot be defined as theft, battery, or the logical extension of heterosexual sex. It is not limited to a specific event, but encompasses the myriad ways in which rape threatens the prospect of feminine agency. As an explication that fully countenances women's experiences of their own bodies, Rethinking Rape helps point the way toward reparation, resistance, and the evolution of feminine subjectivity.