Several years ago, Andrea Baker created a miniseries of collage art and text for The Rumpus called “Famous Rapes.” The images, made from paper cutouts and paper packing tape, depict well-known stories, events, and myths of rape throughout history. The stark language of the accompanying text makes the horrors inescapable. Baker has since extended the powerful series into a book, Famous Rapes: Rape Culture from the Sabine Women to the Steubenville, Ohio Football Players, forthcoming from Water Street Press.

As a classical studies student, I was familiar with Greek myths, such as Persephone being captured and imprisoned in Hell and Daphne praying to turn into a tree rather than suffer at the hands of Apollo. Rapere, “to capture, seize, take away,” was one of my early Latin vocabulary words, a likely root of the word rape. For a long time, these myths and vocabulary seemed distant from the world I inhabited.

Baker’s book collapses that distance. With her clear poet voice and art inspired by her everyday life as an antiques dealer, Baker presents a haunting and important reflection of famous rapes, tracing the history of myths and stories to our current cultural climate. The images include recreations of master paintings and original interpretations of events, all demanding the reader view these stories afresh. (more…)

— 6 days ago