Medieval Sex Ed: Hermeneutical Injustice and Forms of Resistance in and Beyond the Medieval Classroom

This essay explores the challenge — and importance — of teaching gender- and sexuality-focused medieval studies in the undergraduate classroom. It particularly considers pedagogy in the Southeastern United States and teaching students who come from backgrounds with a strong focus on censoring practical and non-normative knowledge about gender, sex, and sexuality. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s theory of hermeneutical injustice, this essay argues that medieval literature provides a crucial space for students to recognize and resist the silences and distortions surrounding their own sex education. By exploring the inventive, playful, and creative ways that medieval texts approach sex and gender, students learn to see the unjust limits of their own education and are invited to see and explore — through traditional and creative class projects — alternative ways, new and historical, of understanding sex, gender, and sexuality.