English Literature & Creative Writing
Transgender Temporalities & Gender Nonconformity in Early Modern Drama
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Location
Indianapolis, IN
Subject Area
English Literature & Creative Writing
Start Date
11-4-2014 10:45 AM
End Date
11-4-2014 12:00 PM
Sponsor
James Bromley (Miami University of Ohio)
Description
In this paper, I draw on early modern portrayals of gender nonconformity to provoke a rethinking of temporality and embodiment in modern transgender discourse. Within early modern studies, critics such as Stephen Orgel have analyzed cross-dressing practices on the stage in relation to historical conceptions of gender difference, but they have overlooked the role of temporality in representations of cross-dressing. Transgender theorists, influenced by Judith Butler's work on performativity, have investigated gender as a temporal phenomenon, but scholars have hesitated to connect the insights of transgender theory to a time period prior to the existence of modern transgender identity. In Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton's The Roaring Girl, the cross-dressed title character exhibits a mutable, nonlinear form of embodiment in which there is no direct correlation between Moll's gender presentation and her identifications as both Moll and Jack. Reading the play in light of Julian Carter's theory of enfoldment and Elizabeth Freeman's work on queer temporalities, I critique the popular rhetoric of "being born in the wrong body," and I argue that the play's manipulation of linear temporality through its characterization of Moll offers modern discourse a model of gender nonconformity that operates outside of the narrative of linear transition.
Transgender Temporalities & Gender Nonconformity in Early Modern Drama
Indianapolis, IN
In this paper, I draw on early modern portrayals of gender nonconformity to provoke a rethinking of temporality and embodiment in modern transgender discourse. Within early modern studies, critics such as Stephen Orgel have analyzed cross-dressing practices on the stage in relation to historical conceptions of gender difference, but they have overlooked the role of temporality in representations of cross-dressing. Transgender theorists, influenced by Judith Butler's work on performativity, have investigated gender as a temporal phenomenon, but scholars have hesitated to connect the insights of transgender theory to a time period prior to the existence of modern transgender identity. In Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton's The Roaring Girl, the cross-dressed title character exhibits a mutable, nonlinear form of embodiment in which there is no direct correlation between Moll's gender presentation and her identifications as both Moll and Jack. Reading the play in light of Julian Carter's theory of enfoldment and Elizabeth Freeman's work on queer temporalities, I critique the popular rhetoric of "being born in the wrong body," and I argue that the play's manipulation of linear temporality through its characterization of Moll offers modern discourse a model of gender nonconformity that operates outside of the narrative of linear transition.
