Rate My Professor Rebecca Stringer

Associate Professor Rebecca Stringer serves in the Sociology, Gender Studies and Criminology programme at the University of Otago, where she holds the position of Associate Professor in Gender Studies. She completed her undergraduate studies in Art History and Criticism at Western Sydney University, earning a University Medal and a Sydney Mechanics’ School of Art Award, prior to interning at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Stringer obtained her PhD from the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra, focusing her doctoral research on feminism, victimhood, and Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment. This work culminated in her authored book, Knowing Victims: Feminism, Agency and Victim Politics in Neoliberal Times (Routledge, 2014). Relocating to Ōtepoti Dunedin in 1999, she commenced lecturing in Gender Studies at the University of Otago in June 2000. As the inaugural coordinator of Criminology at Otago, she has steered its development since its introduction in 2015. Stringer has undertaken visiting fellowships at the University of Alberta, the University of Sydney, and Flinders University, and delivered presentations on her research at conferences and events in New Zealand, Australia, North America, the UK, and Europe.

Stringer’s research specializes in the politics of victimhood and victim-blaming. Her earlier scholarship examined these themes in connection with neoliberalism via feminist political theory. Her ongoing projects encompass an analysis of early victimology and the socio-legal legacies of founder Benjamin Mendelsohn’s theory of ‘victim culpability,’ including commissioned translations of his French-language publications into English, and an exploration of the visual culture of victimhood alongside the rise of ‘victim-centeredness’ in contemporary crime mediations. These transdisciplinary efforts integrate feminist socio-legal and political theory, criminology, victimology, cultural history, and visual analysis. She teaches courses including GEND 201: Introduction to Feminist Theory, GEND 208/308: Governing Bodies, and GEND 209/309: Critical Victimology. Recent publications feature “Rape myths, rape law and Mendelsohn's victimology: Law's 'bio-psycho-social' witness” in Feminist Legal Studies (2025), “Mendelsohn's victimology before the war” in Romanian Journal of Victimology (2024), and “Victimology: From criminality to 'victimity' and the problem of victim blame” in The Aotearoa Handbook of Criminology (2021).