Carrie Rentschler

Carrie A. Rentschler is an associate professor at McGill University located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.^[1] She is the wife of prominent sound studies scholar Jonathan Sterne.

Education and Teaching Background

Carrie A. Rentschler is a William Dawson Scholar in Feminist Media Studies as well as the director of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University.^[2] At the Institute, Rentschler teaches courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, these courses include feminist media studies, media and the politics of emotion and affect, cultural studies of news, crime/media/culture, and feminist theories and methods.^[3] Rentschler earned her BA magna cum laude in Humanities from the University of Minnesota in 1994, she received both her MA and PhD in Communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998 and 2002 respectively.^[4]

Research Interests

Rentschler's research interests center around media, pertaining to media as a cultural producer in representations of physical victimization and psychological trauma, and how these representations serve to inform viewers opinions about war, terrorism, citizenship and crime.^[5] She pays particular focus as to how these issues specifically impact women's lives. Several examples of Rentschler conducting feminist research include, the disproportionate criminalization and incarceration of women of colour in the justice system,^[6] as well as her research into using social media as a tool to inform, empower women and expose the perpetrators of rape culture, in an effort to halt the perpetuation of rape culture.^[7] Rentschler also believes that women may feel more empowered by engaging in self-defense strategies.^[8]

Notable Work

Rentschler's 2014 article called "Rape Culture and the Feminist Politics of Social Media" provides an overview of how a younger generation of feminists are fighting back against rape culture, primarily through social media, when in many cases the police, mainstream news media and school authorities often just sweep these issues under the rug, which in turn serves to sustain rape culture by sending the message to women that street harassment, rape jokes and in some cases sexual assault are not issues that should be taken seriously.^[9] This in turn serves to reinforce the feelings of victimization and helplessness, but as Rentschler notes in her article, some younger women are refusing to stand idly by doing nothing and are insisting on calling out the harassment by posting pictures, often taken with their cell phones of their harassers, to online sites so that other women can be forewarned, as well as to support other women experiencing similar stories. These young women and some who certainly identify as feminists refuse to suffer in silence, and social media may be one of their best platforms to inform others about their experiences of living within a rape culture. According to Rentschler, this generation of women are more likely to rely on their cell phones as personal devices of safety, more so than pepper spray and whistles.^[10]

Second Wounds: Victim's Rights and the Media in the U.S.

Rentschler's first book called "Second Wounds: Victim's Rights and the Media in the U.S." was published by Duke University Press in 2011.^[11] She is currently working on her next book that centers around the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder in New York City, where thirty eight witnesses supposedly looked on without choosing to intervene, and the cultural legacies of failed witness that persisted from this horrific event.^[12] The book "Second Wounds" is relevant to feminist studies, because often the mainstream media may choose to focus on the perpetrators of crime, and when journalists do deal with victims and their families, they can come across as cold and insensitive to the victim and the victim's families who are experiencing grief, which only serves to victimize them further, all in the journalists' and mainstream media's attempts for the most sensationalized news stories.^[13] Rentschler's work on victim's rights, demonstrates that in incidences of sexual assault, secondary victimization is all too common on behalf of the police and the courtroom, particularly in regards of institutional neglect involving sexual assault cases. This form of neglect or invisibility is another form of violence, particularly against women.^[14]

Personal Views

Rentschler advocates for an anti-violence rather than a crime control model in reducing crime. This means that people can learn about the sources of certain social problems and the necessary social steps for prevention, to reduce the chances of the crime occurring in the first place. One example is feminist intervention in domestic violence, by using media such as television commercials, and posters on college campuses offering help for those in need, people may be more likely to seek assistance and become more informed of the issues, which can be a step forward in reducing its overall incidence.^[15]

Published Works

Books

Girlhood Studies and the Politics of Place: Contemporary Paradigms of Research. Under contract at Berghahn Press, with co-editor Claudia Mitchell (forthcoming 2014).

Second Wounds: Victims’ Rights and the Media in the U.S. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.

Articles

“Rape Culture and the Feminist Politics of Social Media” accepted for publication in Girlhood Studies: An International Journal, for special issue 6(2) (2013).

“Distributed Activism: Domestic Violence and Feminist Media Infrastructure in the Fax Age” accepted for publication in Communication, Culture & Critique 8:2 (2014).

“On S’En Câlisse, La Loi Speciale: The Music Festival that Wasn’t” Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, (2012). Invited contribution, 1500 words. http://wi.mobilities.ca/onsen- calisse-la-loi-special-the-music-festival-that-wasn't/ Republished as “Grab your drum and join us: Montreal’s street music festival like no other” 6 June 2012 at rabble.ca: http://rabble.ca/news/2012/06/grab-yourdrum- and-join-us-montreals-street-music-festival-no-other Republished 1 July 2012 at nomorepotlucks.org: http://nomorepotlucks.org/site/on-sen-calisse-la-loi-speciale-the-music-festivalthat- wasn't

“An Urban Physiognomy of the 1964 Kitty Genovese Murder,” Space & Culture 14:3 (2011), 310-329.

“The Physiognomic Turn,” International Journal of Communication 4 (2010): 1-6. “Trauma Training and the Reparative Work of Journalism.” Cultural Studies 24:4 (2010): 447-477.

“Sarah Palin, Sexual Anomalies and Historical Analogues.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 4:3 (November 2008), 1863 words. Available online at: http://liminalities.net/4-3/palin.html.

“Risky Assignments: Sexing ‘Security’ in Hostile Environment Reporting.” Feminist Media Studies 7:3 (2007), 257-279.

“Victims’ Rights and the Struggle over Crime in the Media.” Canadian Journal of Communication, 32:2 (2007), 239-259.

“Review Essay: Militarized Media at War and at Home.” The Communication Review 9:1(2006), 143-154, non-refereed.

“Introduction: States of Insecurity and the Gendered Politics of Fear” (co-authored with Carol A. Stabile) National Women’s Studies Association Journal 17:3 (2005), viixxv.

“Witnessing: U.S. Citizenship and the Vicarious Experience of Suffering” Media, Culture and Society 26:2 (2004), 296-304. “Designing Fear: Environmental Security and Violence against Women” Cultural Studies: A Research Annual 5 (2000), 281-307.

“Women’s Self-Defense: Physical Education for Everyday Life” Women’s Studies Quarterly 26:1 (1999), 152-161.

Book Chapters

“Technologies of Bystanding: Learning to See Like a Bystander” accepted for publication in Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and Media Studies, ed. Barbie Zelizer. Routledge (3 October 2013).

“From Danger to Trauma: Affective Labor and the Journalistic Discourse of Witness.” In Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication, ed. Paul Frosh

"Securing Profits.” In Collective Action: A Bad Subjects Anthology, ed. Joel Schalit and Megan Shaw Prelinger. London: Pluto Press (2004), pp. 198–205.

“Designing Fear: How Environmental Security Protects Property at the Expense of People.” In Foucault, Cultural Studies and Governmentality, eds. Jack Bratich, Jeremy Packer and Cameron McCarthy. Albany: SUNY Press (2003), pp. 243–272.

“Expanding the Definition of Media Activism.” In Blackwell Companion to Media Studies, ed. Angharad Valdivia. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers (2003), pp. 529– 547.

Edited Journals

“Doing Feminism: Event, Archive, Techné.” Co-editor, with Samantha Thrift, of a special issue of Feminist Theory, 17:1 (forthcoming April 2016).

“Cultural Studies and the Re-Description of Girlhood in Crisis.” Co-editor, with Claudia Mitchell, of a special issue of Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 6:2 (forthcoming October 2013).

“States of Insecurity and the Gendered Politics of Fear.” Co-editor, with Carol Stabile, of a special issue of the NWSA Journal 17:3 (2005).

Reviews

Review of Jennifer Petersen’s Murder, Media and the Politics of Public Feelings. (2013). International Journal of Communication 7 (2013): 1514-1517.

“Widows, Mothers and War Children” review of Cynthia Enloe’s Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War. London Times Higher Education Supplement, August 26, 2010.

Other Publications

“The Confederate Flag in East Montreal” Bad Subjects #74 (January 2006), word count 4409. Online at http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2006/74/rentschler.html.

“United We Stand: Fresh Hoagies Daily” with Carol Stabile and Jonathan Sterne, Bad Subjects #59 (February 2002), word count 2407. Online at http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2002/59/rentschler.html.

“Securing Profits,” Bad Subjects #48 (March 2000), word count 1647. Online at http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2000/48/rentschler.html.

“Perpetrate My Fist: Women's Self-Defense as Physical Education for Everyday Life,” Bad Subjects #22 (October 1995), word count 2329. Online at http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1995/22/rentschler.html.

Reprinted Articles

“Perpetrate My Fist! Women’s Self-Defense as Physical Education for Everyday Life,” Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Activism and Discussion (Winter 2003), 6-8.

References