Reviewed by:

• Pornographic Sensibilities: Imagining Sex and the Visceral in Premodern and Early Modern Spanish Cultural Production ed. by Nicholas R. Jones and Chad Leahy
• Maristela Verástegui

THE CREATION of a new field of inquiry may often constitute the academic equivalent of extreme sports, and that is certainly the case when it takes place in the arena of medieval and early modern Hispanic Studies. The mere act of not specifying the exact rules of that intersection within such broad an area is still met in some circles with a resistance that is not surprising given the traditionally strict divisions that have dominated the Hispanic humanities. Hispanic literature is one of the disciplines where tradition has wielded greater power, making novel approaches seem more transgressive than they would probably appear in other disciplines. In this context, what editors Nicholas R. Jones and Chad Leahy propose in Pornographic Sensibilities falls beyond the transgressive into the downright subversive, and it does so in the best possible way. The editors propose a dialogue between medieval and early modern Hispanic Studies and Porn Studies as a productive critical approach to a vast corpus of writings where the body and its most intimate aspects feature in openly graphic and uninhibited ways. Although sex encompasses most of these representations, more extreme manifestations like disease and violence complete the continuum of problematic and uncomfortable subject matter that has challenged those who have tried to present the canon of Hispanic cultural production as aseptic and respectable. These are cultural products that resist being neatly packaged into the usual categories and critical molds required to fit the rigid canonical standards of traditional publication, both academic and commercial. Therein lies the value of this volume, in the opening of an interdisciplinary space where, instead of being classified and described, these texts and other cultural artifacts become party to a larger conversation that touches on some of the most current and interesting lines of intellectual inquiry across a wide variety of disciplines. [End Page 121]

Jones and Leahy are clearly aware of the many objections that arise from the use of the term pornography in the context of medieval and early modern Hispanic Studies; for instance, the historicist concerns with anachronism and the idea that pornography as a semantic field is inseparable from modernity. They recognize that even the most recent scholarship reveals its discomfort with the word in the preferred use of terms like erotic or obscene. Indeed, if the only purpose of using the word pornography was to add yet another label to the already copious taxonomy our field inherited from nineteenth-century philology, then many a reader would rather be spared. If the purpose, however, is to apply it to “what we study and how we study it,” as the editors suggest, the possibilities are enticing, and the breadth of the proposed new field appears quite promising for further expansion (3). In the introduction, Jones and Leahy state they asked the contributors to follow “the primary charge of Porn Studies: to place the category of obscenely fleshed iconography at the center of inquiry and to provide answers to how ‛pornography,’ as a mode both of representation and of critique, affects and has been affected by various social, political, and cultural institutions” (3). This is a very promising new lens through which to look at cultural production, and it responds to a dire need for the humanities in general to engage with a wider array of human experiences. The editors argue that the focus of Porn Studies in power dynamics makes it ideal as a methodology to study literary works and other texts with sexual content in an interdisciplinary context. It also adds another vantage point to interrogate our own methods of research and the motivations that underlie them. An approach where sensibilities are part of the premises of inquiry invites scholars to recognize that emotion and perception are not only topics for study but also primary influences in the way research is framed and validated. A focus on sensory and affective concerns...

审核人：

• 色情敏感性：想象前现代和早期现代西班牙文化生产中的性和本能编辑。Nicholas R. Jones 和 Chad Leahy
• Maristela Verástegui

一个新的研究领域的创建通常可能构成极限运动的学术等价物，当它发生在中世纪和早期现代西班牙研究的舞台上时，情况肯定是这样。鉴于传统上主导西班牙人文学科的严格划分，在某些圈子中仍然会遇到阻力，因为在如此广阔的区域内没有具体说明该交叉点的确切规则的行为，这并不奇怪。西班牙文学是传统拥有更大影响力的学科之一，这使得新颖的方法看起来比其他学科可能出现的更具违法性。在这种情况下，编辑 Nicholas R. Jones 和 Chad Leahy 在Pornographic Sensibilities中提出了什么超越了越界，进入了彻头彻尾的颠覆性，而且它以最好的方式做到了这一点。编辑们提出中世纪和早期现代西班牙裔研究与色情研究之间的对话，作为对大量著作的一种富有成效的批判性方法，其中身体及其最私密的方面以公开的图形和不受限制的方式呈现。尽管性包含了大多数这些表现形式，但疾病和暴力等更极端的表现形式完成了一系列有问题和令人不安的主题，这些主题对那些试图将西班牙文化生产的经典呈现为无菌和受人尊敬的人提出了挑战。这些文化产品拒绝被整齐地包装到通常的类别和关键模具中，以适应传统出版的严格规范标准，学术和商业。这本书的价值就在于打开了一个跨学科空间，在这个空间中，这些文本和其他文化产物不是被分类和描述，而是成为一个更大的对话的一部分，涉及到一些最新和最有趣的知识探究线跨越广泛的学科。[结束第 121 页]

琼斯和莱希清楚地意识到在中世纪和早期现代西班牙研究的背景下使用色情一词会引起许多反对意见。例如，历史主义者关注时代错误，认为色情作为语义场与现代性密不可分。他们认识到，即使是最近的学术研究也揭示了它在首选使用色情或淫秽等术语时对这个词的不适。确实，如果使用色情这个词的唯一目的如果要给我们这个领域从 19 世纪语言学继承来的已经很丰富的分类法再添加一个标签，那么许多读者宁愿幸免于难。然而，如果目的是像编辑建议的那样将其应用于“我们研究什么以及我们如何研究它”，那么可能性是很诱人的，而且提议的新领域的广度似乎很有希望进一步扩展（3）。在介绍中，Jones 和 Leahy 表示，他们要求撰稿人遵循“色情研究的主要职责：将淫秽肉体图像的类别置于调查的中心，并就“色情”如何作为一种模式提供答案代表和批评，影响并受到各种社会、政治和文化机构的影响”(3)。这是一个非常有前途的新视角，可以通过它来看待文化生产，它回应了人文学科普遍参与更广泛的人类体验的迫切需要。编辑们认为，色情研究对权力动态的关注使其成为在跨学科背景下研究文学作品和其他具有性内容的文本的理想方法。它还为审视我们自己的研究方法及其背后的动机增加了另一个有利位置。将敏感性作为探究前提的一部分的方法让学者们认识到，情感和感知不仅是研究的主题，而且也是研究框架和验证方式的主要影响。专注于感官和情感问题... 编辑们认为，色情研究对权力动态的关注使其成为在跨学科背景下研究文学作品和其他具有性内容的文本的理想方法。它还为审视我们自己的研究方法及其背后的动机增加了另一个有利位置。将敏感性作为探究前提的一部分的方法让学者们认识到，情感和感知不仅是研究的主题，而且也是研究框架和验证方式的主要影响。专注于感官和情感问题... 编辑们认为，色情研究对权力动态的关注使其成为在跨学科背景下研究文学作品和其他具有性内容的文本的理想方法。它还为审视我们自己的研究方法及其背后的动机增加了另一个有利位置。将敏感性作为探究前提的一部分的方法让学者们认识到，情感和感知不仅是研究的主题，而且也是研究框架和验证方式的主要影响。专注于感官和情感问题... 将敏感性作为探究前提的一部分的方法让学者们认识到，情感和感知不仅是研究的主题，而且也是研究框架和验证方式的主要影响。专注于感官和情感问题... 将敏感性作为探究前提的一部分的方法让学者们认识到，情感和感知不仅是研究的主题，而且也是研究框架和验证方式的主要影响。专注于感官和情感问题...