This dissertation explores how life narratives created by trans*-identified people (transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, and other non-binary identities included in the term’s asterisk) imagine new categories by re-working familiar stories; trans* life narratives are thus indispensable for comprehending how gender, identity, and self shape each other across social contexts in relation to dominant cultural narratives and embedded epistemologies. Prevailing U.S. ideologies (created and maintained through medical and media discourses) conceive of trans* identity through a binary formation, reinforce trans* people as objects who exist for nontrans* consumers, and rationalize trans* people as trapped within improper bodies or liberated within surgically constructed new ones. In opposition, twenty-first century narratives by filmmakers Jules Rosskam and Gwen Tara Haworth, autobiographers Jennifer Finley Boylan and Alex Drummond and YouTube digital storytellers Ky Ford and Skylar Kergil imagine trans* identity as productive – the goal is not to explain or justify gender diversity but to embrace it and to continue to widen its collective scope. The twenty-first century narratives I analyze reconceptualize trans* identity as viable with or without medical intervention and articulate a whole, continuous subject rather than a subject split between pre- and post-transition. Evoking a new historical moment, these life writers and media producers celebrate their identity in spite of or even because of the transphobia they experience. In so doing, radical trans* life narratives exemplify how medical models and popular media fail those who they purport to protect and represent. Gender is an identity as well as a social and historical process, which is constantly open to investigation. If laying claim to an identity makes subjects, as Michel Foucault argues, the process also occurs bi-directionally: identities come into existence through the act of naming and narrating them. As more individuals articulate what it means to be trans*, personal and collective knowledges will expand to include a range of diverse subjectivities, some of which have yet to be narrated into existence.

This thesis examines the influence of Galen (b. 129 AD) on medicine in England between 1618 and 1794, approaching the study of his authority and the use of his work through three case-studies: histories of medicine, pharmacology, and surgery. The histories of medicine illustrate the variety of ways in which Galen is referred to, both as a historical figure, and as an ongoing contemporary influence. His importance in terms of accessing the knowledge of the ancients, and as a fixed point in time around which to discuss the history of medicine, and to situate other practitioners over a broad time period, underlines the significance of his role within medicine. Similarly, the pharmacological texts examined provide a more tangible sense of the influence of Galen, and their varied, but formulaic structures enable specific remedies to be traced over time and their corresponding associations and details compared between different editions. Identifying the role of Galen within surgical treatises also allows for a more theoretical aspect of surgery to be explored, providing a different perspective on an area more frequently portrayed as a manual art. The use of Galenic texts within each case-study, in particular the histories of medicine, demonstrates a significant and nuanced engagement with the content of his works, reiterating the importance of his contribution, and showing the value ascribed to the simplicity offered by past approaches. It is evident that a shift had occurred from the acceptance of ancient authority based on convention, to evaluating the simplicity and utility of information on an individual basis. The value ascribed to utility in the assessment of medical knowledge is evident throughout these texts, which also demonstrate the importance of the experience and observations of the practitioner in facilitating the ongoing and significant use of the influence of Galen.