I will be giving a keynote lecture for participants (PhD students and early career researchers) of the summer school organised by the academic platform Circle U in Louvain la Neuve on the topic:

When the Victim Speaks: Gender and Violence in Biblical Sacrifice

How does meaningful resistance emerge within structures of violence that cannot be escaped or transformed? This presentation examines Jephthah’s daughter—a biblical narrative of child sacrifice—as a case study in what I term “constrained agency”: the strategic deployment of limited power within severe oppression.

Rather than either passive submission or overt rebellion, Jephthah’s daughter negotiates her own death. She speaks back to her father’s vow, demands specific time, and gathers her companions to establish a memorial ritual. Her constrained agency generates lasting institutional change—the daughters of Israel annually commemorate her resistance for four days—without requiring her escape, rescue, or transformation of patriarchal structures.

This biblical narrative illuminates fundamental theological questions about violence, gender, and power that extend across theology: How do the powerless exercise meaningful agency when survival is not possible? What does authentic female solidarity look like under patriarchal constraint? How does counter-memory operate as a form of resistance? Can we theorize resistance that does not promise redemption?

The concept of constrained agency challenges both traditional readings that render victims passive and feminist interpretations that demand their heroic escape. It offers instead a framework for understanding how those facing systematic violence might strategically transform the meaning and memory of their suffering—creating enduring witness without romanticizing victimhood.