This volume was conceived and written at a time of unprecedented attention in the United States to rape and rape prevention on college campuses and more specifically grows out of a panel that I organized for the May 2014 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, in which I and two other presenters explored the problem of how to approach medieval texts that feature sexual violence, in ways that are both academically sound and ethically appropriate for our students. The panel itself resulted from an interaction with a student in a sophomorelevel British Literature class. During a discussion of Geoffrey Chaucer's “The Wife of Bath's Tale,” a student, referring to the rape that precipitates the knight's quest for the thing that women most desire, piped up: “How do we know she was really raped?” I was caught off guard, first, because the rape is unambiguously stated (“By verray force, he rafte hire maydenhed” [III. 886– 9]) and, second, because the August 2012 rape of a Steubenville, Ohio teenager by her classmates— and the controversial response to it by both the community and the media— was very much in the news that week as the case went to trial. To me, and to much of the rest of the class, if the ensuing discussion is any indication, the question reflected the many disjointed and often contradictory attitudes toward women, sexuality, and violence. Despite having taught the tale many times and to hundreds of students over the years, I came away from the class feeling that I had not anticipated the kinds of questions and assumptions students bring to such a text and thus had not adequately prepared myself to teach the work in a such a specific modern context. Judging by the lively discussion that followed the presentations at Kalamazoo, I was not alone. Many teachers, it seems, are eager to develop pedagogical strategies for addressing sensitive topics in the classroom. To that end, this collection includes articles that contextualize scenes of rape, attempted rape, and false accusations in a variety of literary works within the politically charged environment that our students, and ourselves as teachers, study and learn.