Performing Masculinity (working title)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: School of English
Abstract
1. Context
The best-selling success of journalist Norah Vincent's 2006 book 'Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man' demonstrated the continuing popular fascination with gender transformation, and with the ability of members of one sex to 'pass' convincingly as members of the other. Yet there remains little serious research into, or documentation of, the contemporary history of female-to-male cross-dressing. Vincent notes briefly in her book that she picked up tips from a 'drag king' friend, but leaves that term unquestioned, as if it has always been in existence - a counterpart to the better-known (and more extensively researched) 'drag queen.' In fact, the term dates from as recently as the early 1990s, and from a period in which there was much attention -- both scholarly and artistic -- to questions of gender subversion. One of the pioneers and chief disseminators of drag king performance was Diane Torr; a performance artist who had been developing her work in New York's alternative arts scene for a decade before this. Her drag work, rooted in a dancer's understanding of the body's capabilities, is far more complex and nuanced in its implications than Vincent's, and is deserving of more detailed attention than it has to date received.
2. Aims and Objectives
The current research, conducted in close collaboration with Torr herself, will be the first detailed attempt to document and contextualise her work critically. It will seek to locate the emergence of drag king performance within a long history of female-to-male cross-dressing both on stage and in life, while also demonstrating its specific relevance to cultural developments of the last two decades. In doing so, the research will also raise broader questions about the constitution of masculinity itself as a set of performed behaviours. To what extent can these be inhabited as effectively by women as by men? (Indeed, are men themselves merely 'impersonators' of culturally idealised templates of masculinity?) Torr's performance work is particularly significant to such debates, because -- rather than simply resorting to the kind of campy rendition of masculine stereotypes often associated with drag king performance -- she has herself engaged in an ongoing practical research process into the specific variations in constructions of masculinity between different cultural contexts and locations.
3. Applications and Benefits
This research will contribute significantly to ongoing critical and popular debates around gender and performance, by properly contextualising and further disseminating Diane Torr's work as a performance practitioner. Her drag performances and workshops have frequently been written up in the mainstream press (from Time Out to Elle to the Washington Post), but there has been little serious scholarly attention to her work - and what little there has been is at times misleading and inaccurate. The proposed book's combination of critical reflection on, and documentation of her work will bring the theatrical and cultural issues it raises into focus for a broad readership.
The best-selling success of journalist Norah Vincent's 2006 book 'Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man' demonstrated the continuing popular fascination with gender transformation, and with the ability of members of one sex to 'pass' convincingly as members of the other. Yet there remains little serious research into, or documentation of, the contemporary history of female-to-male cross-dressing. Vincent notes briefly in her book that she picked up tips from a 'drag king' friend, but leaves that term unquestioned, as if it has always been in existence - a counterpart to the better-known (and more extensively researched) 'drag queen.' In fact, the term dates from as recently as the early 1990s, and from a period in which there was much attention -- both scholarly and artistic -- to questions of gender subversion. One of the pioneers and chief disseminators of drag king performance was Diane Torr; a performance artist who had been developing her work in New York's alternative arts scene for a decade before this. Her drag work, rooted in a dancer's understanding of the body's capabilities, is far more complex and nuanced in its implications than Vincent's, and is deserving of more detailed attention than it has to date received.
2. Aims and Objectives
The current research, conducted in close collaboration with Torr herself, will be the first detailed attempt to document and contextualise her work critically. It will seek to locate the emergence of drag king performance within a long history of female-to-male cross-dressing both on stage and in life, while also demonstrating its specific relevance to cultural developments of the last two decades. In doing so, the research will also raise broader questions about the constitution of masculinity itself as a set of performed behaviours. To what extent can these be inhabited as effectively by women as by men? (Indeed, are men themselves merely 'impersonators' of culturally idealised templates of masculinity?) Torr's performance work is particularly significant to such debates, because -- rather than simply resorting to the kind of campy rendition of masculine stereotypes often associated with drag king performance -- she has herself engaged in an ongoing practical research process into the specific variations in constructions of masculinity between different cultural contexts and locations.
3. Applications and Benefits
This research will contribute significantly to ongoing critical and popular debates around gender and performance, by properly contextualising and further disseminating Diane Torr's work as a performance practitioner. Her drag performances and workshops have frequently been written up in the mainstream press (from Time Out to Elle to the Washington Post), but there has been little serious scholarly attention to her work - and what little there has been is at times misleading and inaccurate. The proposed book's combination of critical reflection on, and documentation of her work will bring the theatrical and cultural issues it raises into focus for a broad readership.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Stephen Scott-Bottoms (Principal Investigator) |