Books:
The Bawdy
Politic(Ashgate 2004) examines the way tropes and conventions
about common prostitutes were transformed into arguments that
helped the newly restored Stuart monarchy mitigate democratic
energies still lingering after England’s civil wars and the
Interregnum. Sex work, partisans repeatedly asserted,
inherently disrupted ancestral systems of property transfer and
distribution in favour of personal ownership, while the republican
belief that all men owned the labour of their body achieved a
nightmarish incarnation in the prostitute's understanding that the
sexual favours she performed were labour. The prostitute's body
thus emerged in the loyalist imagination as the epitome of the
democratic body politic. The Bawdy Politicuniquely extends
that analysis into legal records like the Middlesex Sessions Papers
and the Bridewell Courtbooks, in order to examine the ways
prevailing assumptions about prostitutes, or “common women” as they
were known, affected the patterns of arrest, arraignment, and
punishment.
'This deeply learned, clearly-written book examines the cultural
function of political pornography by exploring how the bawd and the
prostitute figure as the denigrated representatives of mass
political participation in the period as well as how this
figuration relates to what we can learn about historical women who
were bawds and prostitutes. Mowry's distinctive focus and argument,
and her careful grounding in original research, distinguish The
Bawdy Politic from other scholarship on the topic. This book will
contribute to our understanding of the histories of women, of
sexuality, and of pornography, as well as of political rhetoric and
its resources both in the past and today. The book will also make
an important contribution to discussions about women's relationship
to the emerging public sphere.' Frances E. Dolan, Professor of
English, University of California-Davis
'This is a fascinating study of how the distopic vision of
pornographic pamphlets and broadsides—particularly their
representation of a monstrous bawdy politic governed by “common
women”—provided fodder for anti-democratic politics of the late
seventeenth century. Mowry’s sophisticated reading of political
pornography in relation to legal discourses and practices
contributes not only to a consideration of the gendered dimensions
of liberalism and the public sphere, but to our understanding
prostitution as a sexual identity.' Valerie Traub, Professor of
English and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan
'Meticulously researched and richly detailed... Mowry widely
consults and deftly engages with literary and historical
scholarship on her subject, and her original research encompasses
previously overlooked satires... A worthwhile read, The Bawdy
Politic offers much to literary critics and historians interested
in the politics and pornography of the late Stuart era. Learned,
provocative and exhaustively detailed in its presentation of
historical evidence, Mowry's study moves scholarship toward a
balanced approach to the topic...' H-Net Review
Roxana,
or the Fortunate Mistress (Broadview, 2004).
"Rare is that
edition that gives us a fresh interpretation of a primary work, but
that is precisely what Melissa Mowry has accomplished in this
excellent edition. The introduction details Roxana's place in
Defoe's career and the ways the novel evokes his Dissenter
politics, while also shedding new light on the novel's imbrication
in debates about political sovereignty, feminism, and prostitution.
The supplementary materials are all artfully chosen to produce
fresh readings of the novel. Finally, the inclusion of some of the
alternate endings written for Roxana, along with a brief reception
history of Defoe's work, invites speculation about changes in the
representation of gender and sexuality over the course of the long
eighteenth century in Britain." - Scarlet Bowen, University of
Colorado
Currently, Dr.
Mowry is at work on a project that stretches from the print culture
of the English civil wars (1642-1649) through the publication of
Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa: Ties that Bind: The
Hermeneutics of Collectivity and the English Literary Imagination,
1642-1748.
Links
to Selected Articles
“Women, Work, and
Rearguard Politics and Defoe’s Moll Flanders”
http://ecti.pennpress.org/PennPress/journals/ecti/sampleArticle1.pdf
“Feminism and
Eighteenth-century Studies: Working in the Bordello of History”
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_eighteenth_century/v050/50.1.mowry.html
“Reopening the
Question of Class Formation”
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/eighteenth-century_studies/v043/43.4.mowry.html