MALE-TO-FEMALE CROSSDRESSING I

Simone Chess (Wayne State University, USA)

ISBN 10: 1138951218 / ISBN 13: 9781138951211

Published by Taylor & Francis, 2016

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 595443237

Bibliographic Details

• Title: MALE-TO-FEMALE CROSSDRESSING I
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138951218
• ISBN 13: 9781138951211
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

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.