This collection of original essays explores the historical and cultural diversity of the experience of gender reversal over an exceptional geographical and chronological range. Topics cove- red include anthropology, history, literature.

Chapter 1 Gender Reversals and Gender Cultures, Sabrina Petra Ramet; Chapter 2 Traversing Gender, Anne Bolin; Chapter 3 Sumer, Judith Ochshorn; Chapter 4 Cross-Dressing and Cross-Purposes, J.L. Welch; Chapter 5 Martyrs, Ascetics, and Gnostics, Karen Jo Torjesen; Chapter 6 Cross-Dressing, Gender Errors, and Sexual Taboos in Renaissance Literature, Winfried Schleiner; Chapter 7 Elena Alias Eleno, Israel Burshatin; Chapter 8 Becoming Male, Cynthia Ann Humes; Chapter 9 Gender, Power and Spectacle in Late-Imperial Chinese Theater, Sophie Volpp; Chapter 10 Eroticism, Sexuality, and Gender Reversal in Hungarian Culture, László Kürti; Chapter 11 Sacred Genders in Siberia, Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer; Chapter 12 There is More than Just Women and Men, Sabine Lang; Chapter 13 The Procreative and Ritual Constitution of Female, Male, and Other, Fitz john Porter Poole;