Anti-Androgyne Feminist Analysis of the Fin-de-Siecle Androgyne and the Hermaphrodite as a Radical Queer Employment in Visual Culture
Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Hassold, Cris
Keywords
Gender, Androgyne, France, 19th Century, Fin-de-Siecle, History, Art, Queer, Hermaphrodite
Area of Concentration
Art History
Abstract
The fin-de-si�cle was a time of social upheaval, especially for men faced with changing gender relations and the rise of feminism. Two figures which arose from this male anxiety about changing gender roles are the Androgyne and the Hermaphrodite. The first part of this paper examines the specific ways that the finde-si�cle Androgyne�a supposedly asexual, transcendent, feminized male figure�reassures male superiority over women by maintaining power in male the male body and excluding women from creativity and eroticism. I then compare the Western conception of the Androgyne to another literary and artistic figure, the Hermaphrodite, as depicted by Decadent artists and authors. I believe the �perverse� nature of the Hermaphrodite has the potential for radical employment as a queer theoretical tool in visual culture because it reveals the arbitrary nature of binary hierarchies in sex, sexuality, gender and desire. Using Edelman�s concept of homographesis and Derrida�s concept of diff�rance, I attempt to reconstruct the nineteenth-century Hermaphrodite as a transgressive artistic space for challenging normative identity, while also negotiating the potential problems inherent in the relationship of the Hermaphrodite to actual intersexuals in both the nineteenth century and today.
Recommended Citation
Edwards, Lauren Ondercin, "Anti-Androgyne Feminist Analysis of the Fin-de-Siecle Androgyne and the Hermaphrodite as a Radical Queer Employment in Visual Culture" (2010). Theses & ETDs. 4254.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4254
Rights
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