Rape In 18th Century Malta: Għajnsielem Chapel To Host Talk On Prosecution Of Terrible Crime
Wirt Għawdex will hold the fifth in its series of talks which focuses on the prosecution of rape in 18th century Malta on 16th May at 6.30pm at St Cecilia Chapel, Għajnsielem by Vanessa Buhagiar.
In recent years public debate in Malta has deliberated about issues like female reproductive rights, institutionalised misogyny, and not least violence against women. This has been fuelled by a growing coverage by the media of cases such as femicide, and has sparked changes on the legislative level, such as with the introduction of ‘femicide’ to the criminal code. This shift in discourse has oftentimes been accompanied by a growing interest in the history of violence against women in Malta.
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However, research on this front has so far been limited, especially with regards to Malta’s early modern period. In this lecture, Vanessa Buhagiar will investigate how the concept of rape was understood, presented, and prosecuted in court in eighteenth-century Malta by analysing the
documentation of numerous cases heard in the courts and reported across Malta and Gozo. Insights into the experiences, narratives, and understandings of ‘rape’ of an early eighteenth-century society will be explored.
Buhagiar is the Assistant Director of the Notarial Registers Archive and the Secretary of the Notarial Archives Foundation. She is a trained palaeographer and her research interests include cultural history, Malta during the early modern period, and the humanistic script and its manifestation in Malta. Buhagiar has graduated with Distinction from King’s College London with an M.A. in Early Modern History in 2020.
After the talk, there will be time for questions from the audience and discussion.
Will you be attending?
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