Doing Gender - Aesthetic Stagings on the Threshold

Anne-Berenike Rothstein (Ed.): Kulturelle Inszenierungen von Transgender und Crossdressing. Grenz(en)überschreitende Lektüren vom Mythos bis zur Gegenwartsrezeption. transcript. 2021.

Abstract

The common theme of all the contributions to the anthology is the aesthetic staging of the play with gender along central concepts such as threshold, border and fluidity. The volume originates from a lecture series at the University of Koblenz, to which scholars from various disciplines were invited to reflect on the phenomenon of transgender and cross-dressing. In the resulting anthology, Anne-Berenike Rothstein presents a broad, chronologically oriented passepartout of the phenomenon of the dissolution and transgression of gender boundaries in theatre, opera, literature, film, the visual arts, and popular culture, which already stretches back to antiquity. The different definitions of transgender and cross-dressing underlying the contributions create the impression of an eclectic synopsis in which the breadth of a cultural "rereading" of gender productions emerges.