Unlocking the Mysteries of Cross-Gender Writing
December 13, 2007Fresh research into the phenomenon of transvestism in literature will attempt to unlock the mysteries of cross-gender writing.
Dr Rossella Riccobono and co-editor Dr Federica Pedriali from the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh respectively will launch "Vested Voices II", a volume of essays exploring writers who attempt to take on the persona of the opposite sex, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh today (13th December).
Work on the pioneering project began in 2005 when academics from the US, UK, Italy, New Zealand, France and Switzerland gathered for a two-day conference at the National Library of Scotland examining the possible social or personal reasons for the style of writing.
Dr Riccobono, a lecturer in the Department of Italian at the University of St Andrews said, "This study has attracted a lot of attention because it is a very provocative topic in a new field. There has been some research done in America and Spain but this is certainly the first of its kind in Italian literature.
"In this second volume we apply some of the pioneering theories of the first book which I co-edited with Erminia Passannanti, studying exceptional texts in a less technical way.
"The aim of this study is to broaden the scope of first volume by checking and double-checking the theories, and analysing whether or not the authors can successfully penetrate the psychology of the opposite sex."
Famous British writers who wrote in the character of the opposite sex include Virginia Woolf ('Orlando') and Daniel Defoe ('Moll Flanders'). George Eliot is best known for assuming a man¿s name in order to have her works published. The technique is still utilised in contemporary novels such as Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha". Even Lewis Carroll's classic novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" placed him at the centre of the world of a young girl.
The book, "Vested Voices II. Creating with Transvestism: from Bertolucci to Boccaccio", further investigates the technique where a male author writes from a female point of view and vice versa by studying individual test cases throughout the history of Italian literature from the contemporary to the medieval.
Dr Riccobono continued, "It really is an extremely provocative topic and the ongoing project will broaden in the future to include a comparative study with European literature.
"Volume Three will be co-edited by my colleague Professor Carla Sassi from the University of Verona and will include a case study of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's "A Scots Quair"."
Thursday's event will begin with a lecture from Professor Remo Ceserani, who will be speaking on Disguise and Travesty in Ariosto.
Source: University of St Andrews
-
Lingua franca critical for electronic medical records and health information exchange
Dec 22, 2011 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Dry ice lake suggests Mars once had a 'Dust Bowl' (Update)
Apr 21, 2011 |
5 / 5 (6) |
5
-
Software for safe bridges
Nov 03, 2008 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
0
-
STMicroelectronics Announces Cutting-Edge Silicon Solution for World's Most Advanced Contactless ePassport Programs
Aug 11, 2004 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Gene related to fat preferences in humans found
Feb 03, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
1
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Bohr-Einstein debate: why did Bohr not simply say...
Feb 06, 2012
-
Best/Worst U.S. Presidents
Jan 31, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - History & Humanities
More news stories
A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation
(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...
Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'
A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in "service ...
Other Sciences / Economics & Business
10 hours ago |
4 / 5 (1) |
4
The question of life in the ancient world
Theres a general feeling that we dont get the Greeks ancient or modern. Many, including heads of state like Angela Merkel, visibly shake their head in exasperation, rightly or wrongly, at ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
15 hours ago |
1.3 / 5 (3) |
4
Sonic Cradle lands spot in TED exhibition
A Simon Fraser University graduate student project that melds music, meditation and modern technology has landed a rare spot as an exhibit at TEDActive 2012 in Palm Springs, California this month.
12 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Chilean miners' rescue capsule on show in London
The capsule used to rescue Chilean miners trapped underground for two months goes on display Saturday at the Science Museum in London -- the first time it has been seen in Europe.
14 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets
Users of Google smartphone wallets were being warned on Friday that there is a way to crack pass codes intended to thwart thieves from going on illicit shopping sprees.
Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)
The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.
New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission
Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. Theyre a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel such as an optical fiber o ...
Complex wiring of the nervous system may rely on a just a handful of genes and proteins
Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. ...
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
New power source discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.