The Chevalier d'Eon and his worlds: gender, espionage and politics in the eighteenth century
The Chevalier d'Eon and his worlds: gender, espionage and politics in the eighteenth century
Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d’Eon de Beaumont’s unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image makers, cultural theorists and those concerned with manifestations of the extraordinary. D’Eon’s significance as a historical figure was already being debated more than 45 years before his death.
Not surprisingly, such sensational material has attracted the attention of enthusiasts, scholars and literateurs to ‘the strange case of the chevalier d’Eon’. He has also attracted the attention of psychologists and sexologists, and for most of the last century his gender transformation has been viewed through a Freudian lens. His cross-dressing, it was usually assumed, must have a psychosexual explanation. Until the second half of the twentieth century the terms ‘Eonist’ and ‘Eonism’ were the standard English words for transvestites and transvestism respectively, but ‘Eonism’ was also, thanks to Havelock Ellis, widely regarded as a psychological condition or compulsion. However, in the mid-twentieth century, new ideas about gender-identity disorders led to d’Eon being redefined not as a transvestite, but a transsexual – a person who considers their sex to have been ‘misassigned’.
The essays in this collection contribute to d’Eon’s rehabilitation as a figure worthy of scholarly attention and display a variety of disciplinary approaches. Drawing on new research into d’Eon’s life, this volume offers original and nuanced readings of how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.
9780826422781
Burrows, Simon
5be6e3f9-de96-461c-a438-a5a6bf48429d
Conlin, Jonathan
3ab58a7d-d74b-48d9-99db-1ba2f3aada40
Goulbourne, Russell
a9e10f40-6b31-4d46-b38b-7039225219b1
Mainz, Valerie
abfbc23e-5110-4684-aab5-d9184b43960f
26 February 2010
Burrows, Simon
5be6e3f9-de96-461c-a438-a5a6bf48429d
Conlin, Jonathan
3ab58a7d-d74b-48d9-99db-1ba2f3aada40
Goulbourne, Russell
a9e10f40-6b31-4d46-b38b-7039225219b1
Mainz, Valerie
abfbc23e-5110-4684-aab5-d9184b43960f
Burrows, Simon, Conlin, Jonathan, Goulbourne, Russell and Mainz, Valerie
(eds.)
(2010)
The Chevalier d'Eon and his worlds: gender, espionage and politics in the eighteenth century
,
London, GB.
Continuum, 272pp.
Abstract
Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d’Eon de Beaumont’s unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image makers, cultural theorists and those concerned with manifestations of the extraordinary. D’Eon’s significance as a historical figure was already being debated more than 45 years before his death.
Not surprisingly, such sensational material has attracted the attention of enthusiasts, scholars and literateurs to ‘the strange case of the chevalier d’Eon’. He has also attracted the attention of psychologists and sexologists, and for most of the last century his gender transformation has been viewed through a Freudian lens. His cross-dressing, it was usually assumed, must have a psychosexual explanation. Until the second half of the twentieth century the terms ‘Eonist’ and ‘Eonism’ were the standard English words for transvestites and transvestism respectively, but ‘Eonism’ was also, thanks to Havelock Ellis, widely regarded as a psychological condition or compulsion. However, in the mid-twentieth century, new ideas about gender-identity disorders led to d’Eon being redefined not as a transvestite, but a transsexual – a person who considers their sex to have been ‘misassigned’.
The essays in this collection contribute to d’Eon’s rehabilitation as a figure worthy of scholarly attention and display a variety of disciplinary approaches. Drawing on new research into d’Eon’s life, this volume offers original and nuanced readings of how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.
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Published date: 26 February 2010
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Local EPrints ID: 79882
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/79882
ISBN: 9780826422781
PURE UUID: 2aaaa7c8-834e-4219-ad04-974bb64a21c0
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Date deposited: 22 Mar 2010
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:52
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Editor:
Simon Burrows
Editor:
Russell Goulbourne
Editor:
Valerie Mainz
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