The Auburn Avenue Research Library , in collaboration with the Baton Foundation Inc., will host Professor Thomas A. Foster for a lecture about his publication Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men.

Rethinking Rufus is the first book-length study of sexual violence against enslaved men. Scholars have extensively documented the widespread sexual exploitation and abuse suffered by enslaved women, with comparatively little attention paid to the stories of men. However, a careful reading of extant sources reveals that sexual assault of enslaved men also occurred systematically and in a wide variety of forms, including physical assault, sexual coercion, and other intimate violations. Rethinking Rufus illuminates how the conditions of slavery gave rise to a variety of forms of sexual assault and exploitation that affected all members of the community.

Thomas A. Foster is an associate dean for faculty affairs and a history professor at Howard University. He is the author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America and Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past.

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