Chess Male-to-Female Crossdressing in Early Modern English Literature

Gender, Performance, and Queer Relations
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-1-317-36085-8
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture

This volume examines and theorizes the oft-ignored phenomenon of male-to-female (MTF) crossdressing in early modern drama, prose, and poetry, inviting MTF crossdressing episodes to take a fuller place alongside instances of female-to-male crossdressing and boy actors’ crossdressing, which have long held the spotlight in early modern gender studies. The author argues that MTF crossdressing episodes are especially rich sources for socially-oriented readings of queer gender—that crossdressers’ genders are constructed and represented in relation to romantic partners, communities, and broader social structures like marriage, economy, and sexuality. Further, she argues that these relational representations show that the crossdresser and his/her allies often benefit financially, socially, and erotically from his/her queer gender presentation, a corrective to the dominant idea that queer gender has always been associated with shame, containment, and correction. By attending to these relational and beneficial representations of MTF crossdressers in early modern literature, the volume helps to make a larger space for queer, genderqueer, male-bodied and queer-feminine representations in our conversations about early modern gender and sexuality.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chess, Simone

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatursoziologie, Gender Studies

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Passing Relations 1. "Bare sexes": Doublecrossdressing Encounters 2. "His son in the stead of his daughter": Crossdressing in a Gendered Economy 3. "And so they kissed again": Crossdressing and Queer Heterosexuality 4. "Or whatever you be": Crossdressing and Gender Labor Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

Simone Chess is an Assistant Professor of English and an affiliate of the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her research interests are in Early Modern literary and cultural studies, queer studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She has published articles and book chapters on the topics of crossdressing, bathroom activism, ballads, and blindness.