The Male Body

In this candid analysis, Susan Bordo speaks to men and women alike, scrutinising the images and experience of everyday life. She takes a frank, tender look at her own father's body and goes on to analyse the presentation of maleness in wider society.

This international and multidisciplinary volume focuses on the male body and constructions of gender in a variety of cultural productions and formats. Locating the subject matter in relevant theoretical fields, it looks at representations of male bodies in various contexts through paranoid and reparative lenses. Organized into four major sections, the contributions assembled in this book feature engaging readings of ‘non/conforming bodies’, ‘fashionable bodies’, ‘passing bodies’, and ‘pioneering bodies’ that to different degrees foreground their critical and creative potentials. In its full scope, the book acknowledges the plurality of gendered experiences and the diversity of male bodies. The Male Body in Representation: Returning to Matter adds to Cultural Studies scholarship interested in the body and gender in general and contributes to the fields of Masculinity and Body Studies in particular.

Poets, anthropologists, philosophers, artists, sociologists, and others provide perspectives on the male body.

With the dawn of modern medicine there emerged a complex range of languages and methodologies for portraying the male body as prone to illness, injury and dysfunction. Using a variety of historical and literary approaches, this collection explores how medicine has interacted with key moments in literature and culture.

More and more, men are recognizing the need to educate themselves about their own bodies. This physician's guide to what every man should know about his sexual health is an informative and reassuring reference written to meet the increasing interest in male health issues. 8 line drawings.

A bold, unconventional cultural exploration of the male body and its current place in the Western World examines contemporary perspectives on masculinity in everything from Playboy to Michael Jordan to the recent Viagra craze.

Revealing Male Bodies is the first scholarly collection to directly confront male lived experience. There has been an explosion of work in men's studies, masculinity issues, and male sexuality, in addition to a growing literature exploring female embodiment. Missing from the current literature, however, is a sustained analysis of the phenomenology of male-gendered bodies. Revealing Male Bodies addresses this omission by examining how male bodies are physically and experientially constituted by the economic, theoretical, and social practices in which men are immersed. Contributors include Susan Bordo, William Cowling, Terry Goldie, Maurice Hamington, Don Ihde, Greg Johnson, Björn Krondorfer, Alphonso Lingis, Patrick McGann, Paul McIlvenny, Terrance MacMullan, Jim Perkinson, Steven P. Schacht, Richard Schmitt, Nancy Tuana, Craig L. Wilkins, and John Zuern.

Muscular, fearless, youthful, athletic--the World War II soldier embodied masculine ideals and represented the manhood of the United States. In The Male Body at War, Christina Jarvis examines the creation of this national symbol, from military recruitment posters to Hollywood war films to the iconic flag-raisers at Iwo Jima. A poignant selection of illustrations brings together comics, advertisements, media images, and government propaganda intended to impress U.S. citizens and foreign nations with America's strength. Jarvis recognizes, however, that the male body was more than a mere symbol. During the war, the nation literally invested its survival in the corps of servicemen, and the armed forces set about crafting them into soldiers. Drawing upon medical journals, War Department documents, and government health reports, Jarvis scrutinizes the ways in which physical inspections defined male bodies by fitness and race while training molded those bodies for action. At the same time, she gives servicemen a voice through war memoirs and a survey of over 130 veterans. Her searching analysis reveals not only how the men mediated popular culture and military regimen to forge an understanding of their own masculinity but how, in the face of dead and wounded comrades, they tempered such body-centered ideals with an emphasis on compassion and tenderness. Theoretically sophisticated and methodologically innovative, The Male Body at War makes a major contribution to the literature on the body as a cultural construction. With its compelling narrative and engaging style, it will appeal to a broad range of readers with interests in gender studies as well as to students of American history and culture.