Transitional Shakespeare, Gender, and Adaptation

Transitional Shakespeare, Gender, and Adaptation Synopsis

This Element close-reads a number of films to elucidate transitional aesthetics of Shakespeare, gender, and adaptation. Gender is made flesh by actors' performance. Adaptations function as minor uses of established gender and genres.

Transness is theorized in a number of modes, including drama as processes of social assemblage, stagecraft onscreen, cultural translation, and composite figures that arise from actors' embodiment of characters' self-images. The case studies serve as litmus tests for trans-informed interpretations of what has traditionally been labeled as cis narratives. Trans-informed criticism is a care practice that amplifies the sociality of gender.

Care work can reshape the relationships among audiences, actors, and characters. The study uses trans as method to examine literary and social processes that produce marginalized characters rather than simply to analyze those characters as a predetermined subject. Creating a new kinship and arrangement of knowledge, this Element demonstrates how transness estranges social norms themselves.