In early-twentieth-century motion picture houses, offensive stereotypes of African Americans were as predictable as they were prevalent. Watermelon eating, chicken thievery, savages with uncontrollable appetites, Sambo and Zip Coon were all representations associated with African American people. Most of these caricatures were rendered by whites in blackface.

Few people realize that from 1915 through 1929 a number of African American film directors worked diligently to counter such racist definitions of black manhood found in films like D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, the 1915 epic that glorified the Ku Klux Klan. In the wake of the film's phenomenal success, African American filmmakers sought to defend and redefine black manhood through motion pictures.

Gerald Butters's comprehensive study of the African American cinematic vision in silent film concentrates on works largely ignored by most contemporary film scholars: African American-produced and -directed films and white independent productions of all-black features. Using these "race movies" to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race in popular culture, he separates cinematic myth from historical reality: the myth of the Euro American-controlled cinematic portrayal of black men versus the actual black male experience.

Through intense archival research, Butters reconstructs many lost films, expanding the discussion of race and representation beyond the debate about "good" and "bad" imagery to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race as device in the context of Western popular culture. He particularly examines the filmmaking of Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific and controversial of all African American silent film directors and creator of the recently rediscovered Within Our Gates-the legendary film that exposed a virtual litany of white abuses toward blacks.

"Black Manhood on the Silent Screen" is unique in that it takes contemporary and original film theory, applies it to the distinctive body of African American independent films in the silent era, and relates the meaning of these films to larger political, social, and intellectual events in American society. By showing how both white and black men have defined their own sense of manhood through cinema, it examines the intersection of race and gender in the movies and offers a deft interweaving of film theory, American history, and film history.

A nonfiction investigation into masculinity, For The Love of Men provides actionable steps for how to be a man in the modern world, while also exploring how being a man in the world has evolved.

In 2019, traditional masculinity is both rewarded and sanctioned. Men grow up being told that boys don’t cry and dolls are for girls (a newer phenomenon than you might realize―gendered toys came back in vogue as recently as the 80s). They learn they must hide their feelings and anxieties, that their masculinity must constantly be proven. They must be the breadwinners, they must be the romantic pursuers. This hasn’t been good for the culture at large: 99% of school shooters are male; men in fraternities are 300% (!) more likely to commit rape; a woman serving in uniform has a higher likelihood of being assaulted by a fellow soldier than to be killed by enemy fire.

In For the Love of Men, Liz offers a smart, insightful, and deeply-researched guide for what we're all going to do about toxic masculinity. For both women looking to guide the men in their lives and men who want to do better and just don’t know how, For the Love of Men will lead the conversation on men's issues in a society where so much is changing, but gender roles have remained strangely stagnant.

What are we going to do about men? Liz Plank has the answer. And it has the possibility to change the world for men and women alike.

Increasing numbers of people in our culture, particularly middle-aged men, are finding that the things they worked for over the past two decades are simply not providing the fulfillment they originally expected from them. We are coming to realize that our homes, vehicles, jobs and possessions are not sufficient to stave off the crisis of meaning many of us find when life does not meet our expectations. Sojourn reminds us that life is often messy--complex and full of fear--just as it should be. Learning from the few wild places still available to us in our culture can provide us with the realization that a weighty life is a life on its way to an important integration of body, soul, heart, and spirit.

Izikhothane―township youth from impoverished backgrounds who engage in mock battles of conspicuous consumption where luxury items are often destroyed―gained notoriety in South Africa in the early 2000s.

Sifiso Mnisi delves into the life of the izikhothane, providing an in-depth account of what it means to be a young man within the ukukhothana (Zulu slang for “boasting”) subculture and showing how their seemingly destructive behavior can be a complex way of asserting their masculinity and demanding recognition in a society that has historically dehumanized them.

This book provides a much-needed evaluation of the history of men's fashion advertising in the first half of the twentieth century. Arguably, modernism provided the most visually arresting and playful poster and press advertising campaigns ever launched. Undoubtedly one of the most fecund and complex periods in the history of menswear promotion, the period saw vast sums of money spent on advertising men's clothing by the likes of Austin Reed, the Fifty Shilling Tailors, Simpson and Barratt shoes. Replete with confident head-turners, many posters of the period featured dandies knowingly offering up their bodies for the delectation of women - an irony made doubly rich by the fact that these images were consumed almost exclusively by men. As Jobling expertly shows, the erotic charge in evidence in the representation of the buff gymnos in Calvin Klein's 80's campaigns had much earlier antecedents. There was, surprisingly, a pronounced fetishistic aspect coupled with sexual ambiguity in publicity for underwear in the interwar period. Looking well beyond issues of representation to broader socio-economic contexts in this deeply researched and original study, Jobling addresses an exciting range of discourses relating to professionalization, modernity, mass-communication and marketing, display and consumer psychology.

An examination of the meanings and experiences of six young African-American men. The study seeks to expand our understanding of the complexities of the lives of African-American men and simultaneously challenge seemingly unidimensional images of black men.

With limited resources to contextualize masculinity in colonial Mexico, film, literature, and social history perpetuate the stereotype associating Mexican men with machismo--defined as excessive virility that is accompanied by bravado and explosions of violence. While scholars studying men's gender identities in the colonial period have used Inquisition documents to explore their subject, these documents are inherently limiting given that the men described in them were considered to be criminals or otherwise marginal. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century resources, too, provide a limited perspective on machismo in the colonial period. The Origins of Macho addresses this deficiency by basing its study of colonial Mexican masculinity on the experiences of mainstream men. Lipsett-Rivera traces the genesis of the Mexican macho by looking at daily interactions between Mexican men in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In doing so she establishes an important foundation for gender studies in Mexico and Latin America and makes a significant contribution to the larger field of masculinity studies.

The 'Dandy' is not just an elaborately, well-dressed man - nor is he an exclusively English phenomenon. He is something far more universal and intriguing. The author captures the lives of the Dandies - some were aristocratic but most were not. All, however, had the chutzpah and style to be a true Dandy. Their stories are told against a backdrop of revolutions and war in the world's great cities (London, Paris, New York, Hollywood, Moscow, Berlin), and amid financial and sexual scandals. All too often Dandies lived in luxury but died in penury. The Dandy's place in history is assured. Not because Dandies have made any major contributions to politics, economics or warfare, but because they were, and continue to be, figures of huge but subtle significance - baffling, enigmatic, iconic.

While dance has always been as demanding as contact sports, intuitive boundaries distinguish the two forms of performance for men. Dance is often regarded as a feminine activity, and men who dance are frequently stereotyped as suspect, gay, or somehow unnatural. But what really happens when men dance?
When Men Dance offers a progressive vision that boldly articulates double-standards in gender construction within dance and brings hidden histories to light in a globalized debate. A first of its kind, this trenchant look at the stereotypes and realities of male dancing brings together contributions from leading and rising scholars of dance from around the world to explore what happens when men dance. The dancing male body emerges in its many contexts, from the ballet, modern, and popular dance worlds to stages in Georgian and Victorian England, Weimar Germany, India and the Middle East. The men who dance and those who analyze them tell stories that will be both familiar and surprising for insiders and outsiders alike.

The Brother Code: What is the role of manhood and masculinity in the lives of African American males in college? How do manhood norms influence decisions within and beyond college? How might mothers and fathers differentially affect manhood and masculinity in their sons? What are African American's men unique ways of knowing themselves and their surroundings? The Brother Code: Manhood and Masculinity among African American Men in College situates itself at the intersection of higher education and cultural studies to address these questions and more. Primarily, this book offers colleges and universities a penetrative gaze into a complex web of identities-the manhood of African American males in college. Yet the book also seizes a rare opportunity in higher education research to review six historical eras of African American manhood as well as the troublesome relationship between African American males and education in general. This knowledge is important for understanding all aspects of African American male participation in college, including enrolment, retention, curricular, and co-curricular involvement. Based on an empirical study, the data in this book emerged from one-on-one interviews in which 24 African American males enrolled in 12 colleges discussed how manhood matters in their social and college lives. The aim is to help unearth the marginalised topics of manhood, gender, and masculinity in males generally but, more specifically among African American males, a marginalised student group in education. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the book draws upon literature in history, African American studies, gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, psychology, and anthropology.

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Read the Preface.

"Readers unfamiliar with the burgeoning literature on the neglected importance of fatherhood will find this study a helpful beginning point."
--"CHOICE"

"A more nuanced and embedded analysis of men's experiences of procreation than we have ever had. One can no longer speak of fatherhood as separate from the decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and reproduction."
--Michael Kimmel, State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Over the past 15 years much pioneering work has been done on the social demography of young men's sexual activities, contraceptive use, and fertility experiences. But how do men develop and manage their identities in these areas?

In Sex, Men, and Babies, William Marsiglio and Sally Hutchinson provide a compelling and insightful portrait of young men who are capable of anticipating, creating, and fathering human life. Based on in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of 70 single men aged 16-30, this is the most comprehensive, qualitative study of its kind. Through intimate stories and self-reflections, these men talk about sex, romance, relationships, birth control, pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions, visions of fathering, and other issues related to men's self-awareness, and the many ways they construct, explain, and change their identities as potential fathers. The interviews also provide valuable insights about how young men experience responsiblities associated with sex and the full range of procreative events.

Accessibly written for a wide audience and raising a host of issues relevant to debates about unplanned pregnancy, childbearing among teens and young adults, and women's andchildren's well-being, Sex, Men, and Babies is the fullest account available today on how young men conceptualize themselves as procreative beings. Lessons from this study can inform interventions designed to encourage young men to be more aware of their abilities and responsiblities in making babies.

In the last three decades, the human body has gained increasing prominence in contemporary political debates, and it has become a central topic of modern social sciences and humanities. Modern technologies - such as organ transplants, stem-cell research, nanotechnology, cosmetic surgery and cryonics - have changed how we think about the body. In this collection of thirty original essays by leading figures in the field, these issues are explored across a number of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, including pragmatism, feminism, queer theory, post-modernism, post-humanism, cultural sociology, philosophy and anthropology. A wide range of case studies, which include cosmetics, diet, organ transplants, racial bodies, masculinity and sexuality, eating disorders, religion and the sacred body, and disability, are used to appraise these different perspectives. In addition, this Handbook explores various epistemological approaches to the basic question: what is a body? It also offers a strongly themed range of chapters on empirical topics that are organized around religion, medicine, gender, technology and consumption. It also contributes to the debate over the globalization of the body: how have military technology, modern medicine, sport and consumption led to this contemporary obsession with matters corporeal? The Handbook's clear, direct style will appeal to a wide undergraduate audience in the social sciences, particularly for those studying medical sociology, gender studies, sports studies, disability studies, social gerontology, or the sociology of religion. It will serve to consolidate the new field of body studies.