Red X iconGreen tick iconYellow tick icon
Skip to main content

BA (Hons) (W Syd) PhD (ANU)Rebecca Stringer profile image

Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies
Pronouns: she/her

Contact details

Room 5C13, Richardson Building
Tel +64 3 479 8759
Email rebecca.stringer@otago.ac.nz

Background

Rebecca completed her undergraduate studies in Art History and Criticism at Western Sydney University, graduating with a University Medal and a Sydney Mechanics’ School of Art Award before interning at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Rebecca completed her PhD in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University in Canberra, embarking on research about feminism, victimhood and Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment that would culminate eventually in her book Knowing Victims: Feminism, Agency and Victim Politics in Neoliberal Times (Routledge, 2014). She relocated to Ōtepoti Dunedin in 1999 and in June 2000 began lecturing for Gender Studies at Otago, where she teaches papers about feminist theory, gender and politics, and critical victimology. Rebecca was the inaugural coordinator of Criminology at Otago and has contributed to steering its development since its introduction in 2015. She has held visiting fellowships at the University of Alberta, the University of Sydney and Flinders University, and has presented her research at conferences and events locally and in Australia, North America, the UK and Europe.

Research

The politics of victimhood and victim-blaming are the core focus of Rebecca’s research. Her earlier work explored this focus in relation to neoliberalism and through the lens of feminist political theory. Her current research combines two projects, the first examining early victimology and the socio-legal legacies of its founding theory of ‘victim culpability’. Rebecca commissioned Frédéric Dichtel to translate from French to English the early publications of victimology founder Benjamin Mendelsohn. The work arising from this research gives the Anglophone literature its first account of the victimological method of criminal defence Mendelsohn developed in his career as a barrister, showing the legal roots of the ‘culpable victim’ theory and critically tracing its continued presence in law and criminal justice policy. Rebecca’s second project explores the visual culture of victimhood and the ambiguous rise of ‘victim-centeredness’ in modern and contemporary mediations of crime. These are transdisciplinary projects, drawing upon and bringing together research and perspectives from feminist socio-legal and political theory, criminology and victimology, cultural history, and forms of visual analysis learned early on in Rebecca’s career.

Papers

Postgraduate supervision areas

I will be accepting new expressions of interest again in June 2025.

Expressions of interest should explain how the proposed research relates to one or more of the following broad areas:

  • Politics of victimhood and victim-blaming
  • Political theory – feminist, intersectional, Trans
  • Victimology – critical perspectives

Completed primary supervisions

Current primary supervisions

  • Bell Murphy - Empowerment beyond the neoliberal self: An autoethnography of a feminist self-defence teacher in Aotearoa
  • Georgia Knowles - Love, gender, and violence – exploring how love and abuse co-exist in the narratives of people who have used and experienced violence
  • Charlotte Von Waldenfels - Trauma, womanhood and landscape in female-led crime drama

Publications

Stringer, R. (2024). Mendelsohn's victimology before the war. Romanian Journal of Victimology, 1, 43-53. Journal - Research Article

Stringer, R. (2024). Rape myths, rape law and Mendelsohn's victimology: Law's 'bio-psycho-social' witness. Feminist Legal Studies. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s10691-024-09548-x Journal - Research Article

Stringer, R. (2023, November). The origins of victimology in Benjamin Mendelsohn's legal practice. Verbal presentation at the Societatea Română de Victimologie / Romanian Society of Victimology (RSV) National Conference: Highlights on victimology, victimization and victims (4th edition), [Online]. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Stringer, R. (2021). Victimology: From criminality to 'victimity' and the problem of victim blame. In E. Stanley, T. Bradley & S. Monod de Froideville (Eds.), The Aotearoa handbook of criminology. (pp. 257-265). Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press. Chapter in Book - Research

Stringer, R. (2014). Knowing victims: Feminism, agency and victim politics in neoliberal times. Hove, UK: Routledge, 185p. Authored Book - Research

Back to top