Creating an Asexual Gender: Hermaphroditus in Ovid's Metamorphoses (GWSS certificate capstone)

This talk explores how asexuality can produce a unique asexual gender formation through a process of ungendering. Not only does this appear in modern sociology, but also in ancient Roman literature where the Roman sex/gender system in which one’s role in sex could be determinative of gender heightens this effect. This talk argues that Hermaphroditus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a long poem from the first century CE telling of transformations, can be read as asexual and that in his story asexuality can be understood as producing and literalizing a unique gender formation created through a process of ungendering.