Dear friends and colleagues, I would like to sincerely thank everyone who responded to my question, both on- and off-list. I am deeply grateful to you all: in less than 24 hours, I received 25 suggestions – I am amazed by our group’s capacity for cooperation and mutual enrichment. Reading your replies, I realised that this topic can take on a scope I hadn’t considered, as it borders on and, at times, overlaps with related topics, such as androgyny, the male body as the normative body, the concept of āśrayaparivṛtti/parāvṛtti, normative literature (Kāmasūtra and Kāmaśāstras), Buddhist literature in Pāli, genderbending/emasculating rituals in Vedic texts – to mention just a few. Perhaps a dear friend is right who, off-list, writes to me that the topic deserves a panel at a conference or, perhaps, an entire conference... Over the next few days I will organise your suggestions and recommendations and send you a summary email with a bibliography.
Thank you again. Warm regards to all, Marco --- Marco Franceschini ———————————--- Associate Professor University of Bologna Department of History and Cultures Personal web page <https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marco.franceschini3/en> Academia web page <http://unibo.academia.edu/MarcoFranceschini> — > Il giorno 13 mar 2026, alle ore 21:46, Marco Franceschini > <[email protected]> ha scritto: > > Dear friends and colleagues, > > one of my students is writing her undergraduate thesis on the theme of gender > change in pre-modern Sanskrit literature. > So far, we have identified the following cases: > - Ila/Sudyumna-Ilā (Rāmāyaṇa, Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Viṣṇupurāṇa, Vāyupurāṇa) > - Bhaṅgāsvana (Mahābhārata) > - Śikhaṇḍin (Mahābhārata) > - Mūladeva (Vetālapañcaviṃśati) > - Rūpāvatī (Divyāvadāna) > - Arjuna (Mahābhārata) > > As for studies on the subject, we have been able to identify only these three: > - M. Bloomfield, On the Art of Entering Another's Body: A Hindu Fiction Motif > - N. Brown, Change of Sex as a Hindu Story Motif > - R. Goldman, Transsexualism, Gender, and Anxiety in Traditional India > > I would be grateful for any additional suggestions you might wish to provide. > > Thank you in advance for your suggestions. > Best wishes, > > Marco > --- > Marco Franceschini > ———————————--- > Associate Professor > University of Bologna > Department of History and Cultures > Personal web page <https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marco.franceschini3/en> > Academia web page <http://unibo.academia.edu/MarcoFranceschini> > — > > > >
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