Studies of sexuality in Caribbean culture are on the rise, focusing mainly on homosexuality and homophobia or on regional manifestations of normative and nonnormative sexualities. The Cross-Dressed Caribbean extends this exploration by using the trope of transvestism not only to analyze texts and contexts from anglophone, francophone, Spanish, Dutch, and diasporic Caribbean literature and film but also to highlight reinventions of sexuality and resistance to different forms of exploitation and oppression.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Maria Cristina Fumagalli, Bénédicte Ledent and Robert del Valle Alcalá

1 Revolutions in Drag

The Transvestite and Cubanness in Severo Sarduy's De donde son Los cantantes
Paula K. Sato

A Revolution in Drag: Reinaldo Arenas, or the Insurrection of Excess
Roberto del Valle Alcala

"Cyaan Live Split": Under-Dressing, Over-Performing, Transgendering, and the Uses of Camouflage in Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven
Chantal Zabus

"Not Woman Enough Everywhere": Gender, Nation, and Narration in the Work of Patrick Chamoiseau
Michael Niblett

2 "Passing" through Time

El habito hace al monje: Nineteenth-Century Cross-Dressing and (Bi-)Sexuality in Benltez-Rojo's Mujer en traje de batalla
Kerstin Oloff

"Love the Drag ... but Your Purse ls on Fire!": Cross-Dressings in the Religious Imaginary of Aelred's Sin
Lee Easton and Kelly Hewson

Little Miss Muffet Meets Spider Anancy: The Use of Drag in Sistren's Muffet Inna All a Wi
Karina Smith

Cross-Dressing and the Caribbean Imaginary in Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber
Wendy Knepper

3 Theories in the Flesh

The Caribbean and Transvestism
Mayra Santos Febres
Translated by Roberto del Valle Alcalá

On Becoming an Indian Starboy
Shani Mootoo

Crisscrossing Identities in Maryse Conde's Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?
Carine M. Mardorossian

Tales Told under the San Fernando Hill
Lawrence Scott

4 Symptoms and Detours

The Body of Vodou: Corporeality and the Location of Gender in Afro-Diasporic Religion
Roberto Strongman

Helen in Her Yellow Dress: Dressing, Undressing, and Cross-Dressing in the Literature of the Contemporary Caribbean
Lizabeth Paravisini

Defying Binarism: Cross-Dressing and Transdressing in Mayra Santos Febres's Sirena Selena vestida de pena and Rita Indiana Hernandez's La estrategia de Chochueca
Odile Ferly

Broadcasters and Butterflies: Sexual Transgression as Cultural Critique in Dutch Caribbean Writing
Isabel Hoving

Bibliography

Notes on Contributors

Index