University of Richmond Professor Rhiannon Graybill Receives International Religious Studies Book Award

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND — Rhiannon Graybill, professor of religious studies at the University of Richmond, is a recipient of the 2022 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies from the American Academy of Religion for her book Texts After Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible.

This prestigious award, which Graybill received earlier this month, recognizes new scholarly publications that make significant contributions to the study of religion. This year’s awards honored works from 2022 and 2023.

“My ambition for Texts After Terror was to imagine new ways of understanding biblical rape stories,” said Graybill. “I was interested in finding ways of reading that took seriously the pain and suffering of these texts but also offer the possibility of imagining an after to sexual violence, biblical and contemporary.”

The jury from AAR who selectedTexts After Terror for this award noted the book has been described as “daring and devastating,” as well as a “critical and authentic engagement with many of the Bible's most disturbing narratives.”

Graybill is the Marcus M. and Carole M. Weinstein & Gilbert M. and Fannie S. Rosenthal Chair of Jewish Studies. In addition to Texts After Terror, she is also the author of Are We Not Men?: Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets, as well as numerous articles and book chapters.

###