Description
Book SynopsisConfiguring Masculinity in Theory and Literary Practice combines a critical survey of the most current developments in the emergent field of Masculinity Studies with both a historical overview of how masculinity has been constructed within British Literature from the Middle Ages to the present and a special focus on developments in the 20th and 21st centuries. The volume combines seminal articles on the most important concepts in Masculinity Studies by acknowledged experts such as Raewyn Connell, Todd Reeser, and Richard Collier with new and innovative analyses of key British literary texts combining Literary and Cultural Studies approaches with those currently deployed in Masculinity Studies, Gender Studies, Legal Studies, Postcolonial Studies as well as methodologies derived from sociology.
Trade Review"The collection opens with three essays that provide broad and thorough introductions to key developments in the field [of masculinity studies] over time. Stefan Horlacher’s introduction, entitled “Configuring Masculinity”, is a succinct exploration of just what is and what might be this “new field of research” called masculinity studies. For those new to the field, Horlacher’s review of the field’s development serves as an important first step toward future studies; for those who’ve been at it a while, it serves as a good take on just how we can make this field matter, not just to literary studies, but to all inquiries into the humanities. […] We know by now that masculinity has moved beyond a single, stable benchmark against which all male behavior can be read. What we don’t know is what’s next, and the essays here help us envision the possibilities of what the future of masculinities studies might hold. What all of these readings do, to various degrees, can be applied to the reading of any work of literature, and I would suggest other works of art as well. They teach us how to note and interpret the many visions and versions of masculinity that we come upon as we move through the business of making sense and lessons out of whatever reading and interpreting we may do.” - Fred Gardaphe, Queens College/CUNY, in: Culture, Society & Masculinities 8.1 (2016), pp. 82-84 "This set of essays is ideal for readers who wish to gain new interpretative methodologies to reading literary texts.” - Georgina Bozsó, University of Debrecen, HU, in: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 23.2 (2017), pp. 440-444
Table of ContentsCONTENTS Stefan Horlacher Configuring Masculinity Todd W. Reeser Concepts of Masculinity and Masculinity Studies Raewyn Connell Masculinities: The Field of Knowledge Richard Collier On Reading Men, Law and Gender: Legal Regulation and the New Politics of Masculinity Christoph Houswitschka Masculinity in Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur Mark Bracher From Antisocial to Prosocial Manhood: Shakespeare’s Rescripting of Masculinity in As You Like It Rainer Emig Sentimental Masculinity: Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) Stefan Horlacher “Joseph the Dreamer of Dreams”: Jude Fawley’s Construction of Masculinity in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure Sebastian Müller From Angry Young Scholarship Boy to Male Role Model: The Rise of the Working-Class Hero Fatemeh Hosseini “Filiarchy” and Masculinity in the Early Novels of Ian McEwan Bettina Schötz “What Is a Man?”, or the Representation of Masculinity in Hanif Kureishi’s Short Fiction Bénédicte Ledent Of Invisible Men and Native Sons: Male Characters in Caryl Phillips’ Fiction Daniel Lukes Surrogate Dads: Interrogating Fatherhood in Will Self’sThe Book of Dave Notes on Contributors Index
