Masculinity Under Construction

Masculinity Under Construction: Literary Re-Presentations of Black Masculinity in the African Diaspora analyzes Black male identity as constructed by Black male authors. In each chapter, Dr. Jefferson-James discusses a different "construction" or definition of masculine identity produced by men of African descent on the continent of Africa, in the Caribbean, and in North America. Combing through the works of James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Ralph Ellison, George Lamming, and other pan-African authors, Masculinity Under Construction argues for the importance of analyzing the historical context that contributed to the formation of Black male identity. Additionally, Dr. Jefferson-James draws a relationship between Black feminists and writers, such as Anna Julia Cooper and her contemporaries, and these works of literature viewed as primarily about Black masculinity.

Taking a non-essentialist approach, this book provides a number of compelling and fascinating accounts of how gender intersects with nationality, ethnicity, economy, age, sexuality and class. The identity processes discussed richly illustrate the complexity, constructedness and contestability of gender.

Since the late 1960s, the lives of south Koreans have been reconstructed on the shifting ground of urbanization, industrialization, military authoritarianism, democratic reform, and social liberalization. Class and gender identities have been modified in relation to a changing modernity and new definitions of home and family, work and leisure, husband and wife. Under Construction provides an illuminating portrait of south Koreans in the 1990s--a decade that saw a return to civilian rule, a loosening of censorship and social control, and the emergence of a full-blown consumer culture. It shows how these changes impacted the lives of Korean men and women and the very definition of what it means to be "male" and "female" in Korea. In a series of provocative essays written by Korean and Western scholars, we see how Korean women and men actively engage, and at times openly contest, the limitations of gender. Under Construction is part of a decisive turn in the anthropology of gender--from its early quest for the causes of female subordination to a finely tuned analysis of the historical, cultural, and class-based specificities of gender relations and the tension between gender as an ideological construct and as a lived experience. Firmly grounded in the political and economic history of south Korea, this long-awaited volume fills an important gap in Korean studies and East Asia gender studies in English. Contributors: Nancy Abelmann, Cho Haejoang, Roger L. Janelli, Laurel Kendall, June Lee, So-Hee Lee, Seungsook Moon, Dawnhee Yim.

This book advances the claims of feminist international relations scholars that the social construction of masculinities is key to resolving the scourges of militarism, sexual violence and international insecurity. More than two decades of feminist research has charted the dynamic relationship between warfare and masculinity, but there has yet to be a detailed account of the role of masculinity in structuring the range of volatile civil conflicts which emerged in the Global South after the end of the Cold War. By bridging feminist scholarship on international relations with the scholarship of masculinities, Duriesmith advances both bodies of scholarship through detailed case study analysis. By challenging the concept of ‘new war’, he suggests that a new model for understanding the gendered dynamics of civil conflict is needed, and proposes that the power dynamics between groups of men based on age difference, ethnicity, location and class form an important and often overlooked causal component to these civil conflicts. Exploring the role of masculinities through two case studies, the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) and the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005), this book will be of great interest to postgraduate students, practitioners and academics working in the fields of gender and security studies.

The Manly Modern, the first major book on the history of masculinity in Canada, traces the history of what happened when men's supposed modernity became one of their defining features. Through a series of case studies covering such diverse subjects as car culture, mountaineering, war veterans, murder trials, and a bridge collapse, Christopher Dummitt argues that the very idea of what it meant to be modern was gendered. A strong current of anti-modernist sentiment bubbled just beneath the surface of postwar masculinity, creating rumblings about the state of modern manhood that, ironically, mirrored the tensions that burst forth in 1960s gender radicalism.

Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that presents masculinity as a key thematic concern in contemporary New York fiction. This study argues that New York authors do not simply depict masculinity as a social and historical construction but seek to challenge the archetypal ideals of masculinity by writing counter-hegemonic narratives. Gendering canonical New York writers, namely Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and Don DeLillo, illustrates how explorations of masculinity are tied into the principal themes that have defined the American novel from its very beginning. The themes that feature in this study include the role of the novel in American society; the individual and (urban) society; the journey from innocence to awareness (of masculinity); the archetypal image of the absent and/or patriarchal father; the impact of homosocial relations on the everyday performance of masculinity; male sexuality; and the male individual and globalization. What connects these contemporary New York writers is their employment of the one of the great figures in the history of literature: the flâneur. These authors take the flâneur from the shadows of the Manhattan streets and elevate this figure to the role of self-reflexive agent of male subjectivity through which they write counter-hegemonic narratives of masculinity. This book is an essential reference for those with an interest in gender studies and contemporary American fiction.

Whereas many of the men of Reagan's '80s seemed stereotypically hypermasculine, a host of '90s images suggest a new phase of more sensitive manhood. In the Clinton era, both academic and popular writers suggested that a «crisis of masculinity» had taken root - one that had men questioning traditional male ideas and seeking new identities. This book explores the conflicted ways in which this seemingly new climate of masculinity was negotiated. From Bill Clinton to The Promise Keepers and Titanic to Friends, a host of '90s heroes put this rhetoric of crisis to work to win elections, audience members, and ratings.