The Scandalous Nun Maria Monk

Maria Monk was a 19-year-old ex-prostitute whose shocking claims in an 1836 bestseller about sexual abuse in a Montreal convent became the subject of a two-year media frenzy and religious press war. In this hour, UW English Professor David Zimmerman explores how Monk’s “porno-gothic” convent captivity narrative reveals 19^th-century attitudes toward Catholicism, women, and sexuality.