diff -r 59a189a15933 Doc/library/email.mime.rst
--- a/Doc/library/email.mime.rst	Thu Oct 25 17:23:54 2012 -0700
+++ b/Doc/library/email.mime.rst	Fri Oct 26 14:16:43 2012 +0200
@@ -186,4 +186,8 @@
    set of the text and is passed as a parameter to the
    :class:`~email.mime.nonmultipart.MIMENonMultipart` constructor; it defaults
    to ``us-ascii`` if the string contains only ``ascii`` codepoints, and
-   ``utf-8`` otherwise.
+   ``utf-8`` otherwise. The *_charset* parameter accepts either a string or a
+   :class:`~email.charset.Charset` instance.
+
+   .. versionadded:: 3.4
+      *_charset* also accepts :class:`~email.charset.Charset` instances.
diff -r 59a189a15933 Lib/email/mime/text.py
--- a/Lib/email/mime/text.py	Thu Oct 25 17:23:54 2012 -0700
+++ b/Lib/email/mime/text.py	Fri Oct 26 14:16:43 2012 +0200
@@ -37,6 +37,6 @@
                 _charset = 'utf-8'
 
         MIMENonMultipart.__init__(self, 'text', _subtype,
-                                  **{'charset': _charset})
+                                  **{'charset': str(_charset)})
 
         self.set_payload(_text, _charset)
diff -r 59a189a15933 Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py	Thu Oct 25 17:23:54 2012 -0700
+++ b/Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py	Fri Oct 26 14:16:43 2012 +0200
@@ -1445,6 +1445,10 @@
         msg = MIMEText('hello there', _charset='us-ascii')
         eq(msg.get_charset().input_charset, 'us-ascii')
         eq(msg['content-type'], 'text/plain; charset="us-ascii"')
+        # Also accept a Charset instance
+        msg = MIMEText('hello there', _charset=Charset('utf-8'))
+        eq(msg.get_charset().input_charset, 'utf-8')
+        eq(msg['content-type'], 'text/plain; charset="utf-8"')
 
     def test_7bit_input(self):
         eq = self.assertEqual
diff -r 59a189a15933 Misc/ACKS
--- a/Misc/ACKS	Thu Oct 25 17:23:54 2012 -0700
+++ b/Misc/ACKS	Fri Oct 26 14:16:43 2012 +0200
@@ -881,6 +881,7 @@
 Alexandre Parenteau
 Dan Parisien
 William Park
+Claude Paroz
 Harri Pasanen
 Gaël Pasgrimaud
 Bo Peng