Female Impersonation

Female Impersonation is a feminist and psychoanalytic investigation of the contemporary fascination with impersonation. Evident everywhere from television talk shows to cultural theory, masquerade and "passing" are now at the center of both popular and scholarly explorations of dominant gender, sexual, race and class identities and cultural values. When--and for whom--is a performance of an identity a masquerade, rather than the real thing? Why do people try to pass as what they are not? Is there a difference between masquerade and passing if both make identity an unnatural act? Carole-Anne Tyler considers these questions raised by female impersonations in a wide range of contemporary media and texts, from Dolly Parton and Renee Richards to Luce Irigaray and Jacques Derrida. Female Impersonation will be of interest to readers concerned with the complex politics at stake in every discussion--and performance--of identity. Perhaps the most surprising idea of contemporary Western feminism is that women are female impersonators.