Roof, Judith2019-05-172019-05-172018-052018-04-19May 2018Rindell, Suzanne. "Fashion and the Shifting Semiotics of Sex and Gender in Modernist Lit and Culture." (2018) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105618">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105618</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105618Early 20th century women’s fashion increasingly included the trope of “borrowing” – a trend that translated into women appropriating styles previously reserved for other subjectivities (children, men, athletes, blue-collar workers, etc). These borrowed fashions engaged an ambiguous semiotics that enabled multiple “readings” (linking a specific fashion to the demographics of a specific subjectivity) to exist simultaneously, and in some cases provided the occasion for opposite readings to exist simultaneously. This dissertation surveys a series of examples found in literature and popular culture during the early 20th century (focusing primarily on the 1920s and 1930s), analyzing the ways these “borrowed” women’s fashions collectively create a semiotic mechanism that fluidly negotiates the shifting terrains of gender representation and sexual desire – at some intervals easing cultural resistance to “transgressive” genders and desires, and in other instances underscoring previously existing regimes of heteronormative conformity.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.Modernismmodernist literaturesemioticsfashionThesis2019-05-17