Obscene Pedagogies: Transgressive Talk and Sexual Education in Late Medieval Britain

by Carissa M Harris

In Obscene Pedagogies , Carissa M. Harris investigates the relationship between obscenity, gender, and pedagogy in Middle English and Middle Scots literary texts from 1300 to 1580 to show how sexually explicit and defiantly vulgar speech taught readers and listeners about sexual behavior and consent. Through innovative close readings of literary texts including erotic lyrics, single-woman's songs, debate poems between men and women, Scottish insult poetry battles, and The Canterbury Tales , Harris demonstrates how through its transgressive charge and galvanizing shock value, obscenity taught audiences about gender, sex, pleasure, and power in ways both positive and harmful. Harris's own voice, proudly witty and sharply polemical, inspires the reader to address these medieval texts with an eye on contemporary issues of gender, violence, and misogyny.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Medieval

306 pages, Hardcover

Published December 15, 2018

Reviews

[hope h. · Rating 5 out of 5]

soooo good and incredibly necessary work linking medieval attitudes towards sex to modern day sex ed and rape culture. (plus some absolutely EPIC burns from medieval scottish peasant woman flyting). i find it so fascinating how the middle ages are depicted as backwards and conservative and ignorant when any time you start to read about what it was actually like then, there are so many parallels to modern culture - especially in terms of rape culture and society's treatment of women. lots of important lessons to be taken from this. god bless alewives and lusty maids everywhere ❤️

[Yasmin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well it's very well written from the perspective of a master's or possibly a doctorate thesis at a university. But for me I had thought this book would link social factors to the topic of sexuality in Medieval Britain. What puzzled me was the lack of explanation, even if purely theoretical, as to how women's bawdy songs or songs of pleasure could be written or at least transcribed by men. What would have been the point? Did women in fact sing these songs? Could there even be the remotest chance of women allowing men to hear or in any other way react to their deepest most feelings and desires in terms of sexuality? The links between people and just responding to the documents is just brushed over and in the chapters about supposed women's agency hardly at all. It's not known whether these women's songs are applicable to working women or even to women of the aristocracy. There are no actual voices of women in chapters four and five. The entire book is extremely well researched, very painstakingly, however, there seems to be a very noticeable disconnect between actual people in the Medieval era and the documents. In terms of research and work the book is five stars, but from my perspective as a reader anticipating much more in terms of the connections of people and the documents it's a 2 star book. I had wished it would be more engaging for the reader whom may not be as scholarly focused.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am full of hearteyes and !!! about this book. Harris' readings of medieval and early modern sources are, for the most part, brilliant (I had some few interpretive quibbles re some of the songs), and the introduction is a masterclass in, well, introducing. Particularly Harris' justifications for using an apparently-unrelated theoretical lens (Black feminist criticism) to read medieval lit - the steps she walks through to link the two are exemplary and useful to me, in that my work is often deeply queer-reading based, but also rarely about queer people or experiences.

My chief scepticism is that Harris places, IMHO, rather too much optimistic hope in the power of male-to-male peer education and/or empathetic response to packed rape narratives. Aside from the fact that she (probably unaware of their Problematic rep in Aus) cites resources from White Ribbon Australia and a researcher who was a White Ribbon Ambassador for a long time (ergo, I do not trust him), I am sceptical for so many reasons, both critically and personally informed.

[Madison Padilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an important read. I wish men weren’t real