Ocular demonstrations: cross-dressing and the body in early american texts

Abstract

Ocular Demonstrations is a. feminist literary study of the theoretical implications of cross-dressing in early American texts. Feminist critics Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Laura Mulvey have discussed how epistemologies of gender are most often rooted in the visual. These analyses are concerned with what signifies gender, such a dress, or how our knowledge has been situated to view these signifiers. Cross-dressing crosses the wires of visual representations of gender and offers a challenge to early American social structure. In early American texts, cross-dressers are often re-assimilated into the context's accepted ideas of gender, or are tricksters who are out to do harm. By discussing Michel Foucault’s theories of the deployment of alliance and the deployment of sexuality as a genealogical approach, my project aims to find a way for the body to exist within constructivist theories of gender. In my analysis of three early American novels, I examine situations where crossdressing does not involve a discussion of a body, and exists within a multitude of assumptions on the part of the narrator. I believe, however, that knowledge of a "true" or "original" body is often sought, and thought to be essential .to the viewer's understanding. My project seeks to bring the body back into constructivist views, without challenging ideas of constructivism.

Notes

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Thesis Completion

2001

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Logan, Lisa M.

Degree

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

English

Degree Program

English

Subjects

Arts and Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic;Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Sciences;American literature -- Women authors

Format

Print

Identifier

DP0021701

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

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