Rousseau in drag

About this book

Rousseau in Dragis a provocative interpretation of Rousseau's gender politics. Rosanne Terese Kennedy reads Rousseau's well known but brief flirtation with cross-dressing as a starting point to dramatically reconsider the standard reading of Rousseau as a misogynist. This study argues that rather than a figure of misogyny, Rousseau challenges normative gender identites, the couple, and traditional kinship relations. Reading Rousseau's classical political and philosophical works alongside his literary texts, Kennedy offers us an alternative vision of both Rousseau's sexual politics and his politics in general.