What difference might it make for transgender performers to play Viola in Twelfth Night, Jaquenetta in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Rosalind in As You Like It? Is female-to-male cross-dressing liberating? Are all-female productions of Shakespeare empowering? What is the root of transmisogyny in feminist discourses?

     Moving chronologically from trans studies in early modern to our contemporary contexts, the panel brings emerging developments in trans studies to bear on Shakespeare’s plays, especially instances of socially-oriented interpretations of queer-bodied representations. 

Chair: Sujata Iyengar

• Alexa Alice Joubin, “Shakespeare and Transgender Theory”
• Simone Chess, “Trans Residue: Nonbinary Affect and Boy Actors’ Adult Careers”
• Colby Gordon, “A Woman’s Prick: Trans Technogenesis in Sonnet 20”
• Lisa Starks, “Trans-cultures: Feminisms, Transgender theory, and Shakespeare Studies”

Respondent: Will Fisher