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

Harris is an astute close reader of Late Middle English obscenity.

In Obscene Pedagogies, Carissa M. Harris offers an energetic and incisive analysis of medieval narratives and current affairs that turn on the transgressive power of obscenity. Bold and stylish writing, exemplary close readings, and provocative takes on familiar texts make Obscene Pedagogies a book that will richly reward undergraduate readers.

There is a lot to commend in this book. Aside from its vigorous and energetic writing and the sheer density of insights, its overall approach is also worthy of note.

This book marks a rare-but, one hopes, not for long-example of scholarship that employs skillful literary and cultural analysis to enlarge understanding of enduring social justice problems.... Harris's work is valuable for her insights about discourses surrounding sexual violence in the late Middle Ages. It is equally valuable for how she teaches her audiences about the diversity of ways sexual violence can be perceived, deployed, taught, experienced, and resisted in the Middle Ages and in the present moment.... It is a book that should not be restricted to the shelves of medievalists.

In her meticulously argued new book, Carissa Harris shows that obscenity was used to convey vastly different lessons about sex and ethics in medieval literature.... Dirty words tell us plenty about power. They show us who can speak, enjoy or censor language. They also point to those who are violated, brutalized, silenced. But there is a playful side to obscenity.... Harris's compelling study shows that obscene language can be vicious or, in the right beds and in the right books, dedicated to pleasure.

Harris's book is a bold step forward, as well as a model of exemplary medievalist and feminist scholarship.