Conflicting Identities and Multiple Masculinities takes as its focus the construction of masculinity in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages until the fifteenth century, crossing from pre-Christian Scandinavia across western Christendom. The essays consult a broad and representative cross section of sources including the work of theological, scholastic, and monastic writers, sagas, hagiography and memoirs, material culture, chronicles, exampla and vernacular literature, sumptuary legislation, and the records of ecclesiastical courts. The studies address questions of what constituted male identity, and male sexuality. How was masculinity constructed in different social groups? How did the secular and ecclesiastical ideals of masculinity reinforce each other or diverge? These essays address the topic of medieval men and, through a variety of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches, significantly extend our understanding of how, in the Middle Ages, masculinity and identity were conflicted and multifarious.

Phallic Critiques, first published in 1984, is a study of 'masculine' styles of writing in the twentieth century - an age, according to Virginia Woolf, when 'virility has become self-conscious'. Writers who carry macho values to their extreme often subscribe to the popular feeling that writing is an effeminate activity for a real man to be engaged in. Consequently they attempt to forge 'masculine' style of writing in an effort to redeem language from its sexually suspect nature. These styles reveal much about the ambiguous and paradoxical attitudes of men towards their own masculine role. Peter Schwenger demonstrates the international nature of 'masculine' styles. His study ranges from such American authors as Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway and Philip Roth, to figures like Yukio Mishima, Alberto Moravia and Michel Leiris. This book should be of interest to students of literature.

This book assesses the construction of masculinities in relation to appearance, embodiment and emotions by drawing on perspectives in psychology, sociology, gender studies and public health. Brendan Gough questions conventional assumptions about masculinity and men's health and responds to recent trends in critical studies of masculinities which discuss 'positive' or 'healthy' masculine identities. The book showcases discursively inflected qualitative research using data sources where men's own accounts are prioritised: in-depth interviews and online discussion forums. Chapters discuss men's appearance concerns and activities and examine male mental health, focusing on vulnerability and its management. Current trends and key concepts, including intersectionality, inequalities and embodiment are also considered throughout. This book will appeal to students and academics within social sciences and humanities interested in gender issues in general and masculinity in particular.

The profound changes wrought by the feminist movement were by no means restricted to women. In the years since feminism has taken root, the role of men and masculinity has begun to undergo its own redefinition. Michael A. Messner provides a sociological framework to understand the responses of men to the changes, challenges, and crises in the social organization of gender. By examining not only what certain groups of men say about gender but what they do, Messner helps to illuminate the various social movements engaged with the politics of masculinity. Politics of Masculinities is one of the first books in the new Gender Lens series, which will look at the social world through the lens of gender. The mission of the series is to unpack the assumptions about gender that pervade social life, and to examine the centrality of these assumptions to the way we perceive and interpret our world. Politics of Masculinities is an ideal introduction to the discussion of gender roles and masculinity. This book will be of interest to students and professionals involved in gender studies, sociology, and menAEs studies. This product is now available from: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Phone: 800-462-6420 Fax: 800-338-4550 http: \\www.rowmanlittlefield.com

The friendship of the bachelor politicians James Buchanan (1791-1868) of Pennsylvania and William Rufus King (1786-1853) of Alabama has excited much speculation through the years. Why did neither marry? Might they have been gay? Or was their relationship a nineteenth-century version of the modern-day "bromance"? In Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, Thomas J. Balcerski explores the lives of these two politicians and discovers one of the most significant collaborations in American political history. He traces the parallels in the men's personal and professional lives before elected office, including their failed romantic courtships and the stories they told about them. Unlikely companions from the start, they lived together as congressional messmates in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse and became close confidantes. Around the nation's capital, the men were mocked for their effeminacy and perhaps their sexuality, and they were likened to Siamese twins. Over time, their intimate friendship blossomed into a significant cross-sectional political partnership. Balcerski examines Buchanan's and King's contributions to the Jacksonian political agenda, manifest destiny, and the increasingly divisive debates over slavery, while contesting interpretations that the men lacked political principles and deserved blame for the breakdown of the union. He closely narrates each man's rise to national prominence, as William Rufus King was elected vice-president in 1852 and James Buchanan the nation's fifteenth president in 1856, despite the political gossip that circulated about them. While exploring a same-sex relationship that powerfully shaped national events in the antebellum era, Bosom Friends demonstrates that intimate male friendships among politicians were-and continue to be-an important part of success in American politics.

Many myths surround male bodies and associated bodywork, especially when such bodywork is labelled culturally or socially atypical or 'problematic'. Bodybuilding, for example, has been explained in terms of gender inadequacy and an 'Adonis complex' akin to reverse anorexia, while men electing to undergo aesthetic cosmetic surgery are deemed 'too concerned' about their appearance and thus woman-like. Myths also discredit men and boys who do not engage in appropriate bodywork when this is expected. For instance, amidst public health concerns surrounding a so-called 'obesity epidemic', men and boys who resist physical activity and/or attempts to promote a 'healthy weight' are deemed ignorant, apathetic and in need of correction. Drawing on extensive field research conducted in North America and Britain over a twenty year period, this book challenges such masculine myth making. Mindful of a rich sociological tradition that seeks to understand the social world as lived and experienced, the authors provide insights that are likely to challenge common perceptions of various groups of men and boys, their diverse physical cultures, shared ways of being and identities. Presenting empirically grounded understandings of diverse bodily practices and discourses including bodybuilding, cosmetic surgery, dieting and nightclub security, Challenging Myths of Masculinity will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography and cultural studies, with interests in gender, embodiment and masculinities.

This volume showcases cutting-edge research in the linguistic and discursive study of masculinities, comprising the first significant edited collection on language and masculinities since Johnson and Meinhof's 1997 volume. Overall, the chapters are linked together by a critical analytical perspective that seeks to understand the relationships between discourse, masculinities, and power. Whereas some of the chapters offer detailed, linguistically informed critiques of the ways in which old and new expressions of masculinities are complicit in the reproduction of men's hegemonic positions of power, others provide a more complex picture, one in which collusion and subversion go hand in hand. Contributions argue for the need for research on language and masculinities to expand its remit so as to engage with "gay masculinities," and unsettle gendered categories in order to consider the ways in which women, transgender, and intersex individuals also perform a variety of masculinities. Finally, unlike Johnson and Meinhof's 1997 collection, this volume not only offers a wider-and perhaps "queerer" perspective-on the study of language and masculinities, but also covers a broader geographical and socio-cultural spectrum, including work on Brazil, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa.

The 'invisible men' of sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield's urgent and timely No More Invisible Man are African American professionals who fall between extremely high status, high profile black men and the urban underclass. Her compelling interview study considers middle class, professional black men and the challenges, obstacles, and opportunities they encounter in white male-dominated occupations. No More Invisible Man chronicles these men's experiences as a tokenized minority in the workplace to show how issues of power and inequality exist - especially as it relates to promotion, mobility, and developing occupational networks. Wingfield's intersectional analysis deftly charts the ways that gender, race, and class collectively shape black professional men's work experiences.

The subject of this original and provocative work is the white male body, a counterpoint in gender studies to the many readings of the representation of the female body. To look at the construction of this figure, the author examines a group of discontinuous works that are representative of the discontinuity in the intermittent representation of the male body.
Especially in nineteenth-century narrative, where Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant write astutely on the subject, there is never continuity in representing the male body. "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Bel-Ami" are flickering, episodic investigations into the male body as subject, as sentient feeling, as the subject of torture or of adulation. Not until the twentieth century can this male subject be continuously represented. Though the male body is often at center stage, in works that treat it as a metonymy of its own phallic and phallocentric power, this body has less often been seen relative to pleasure and pain, to aesthetics, to human vulnerability.
An introductory chapter explores a work by Alberto Moravia, "Io e lui," as well as various manifestations of the male body's most salient part, the penis, in contemporary discourse and aesthetics. Another chapter deals with writings about the forbidden activity of masturbation and focuses on the work of three disparate writers: Paul Bonnetain, Michel Tournier, and Philip Roth.
In the final chapter, the author discusses several works that focus on the representation of the male body during the gay liberation movement in France and the subsequent celebration of the male body, ending with the inscription of the male body in the literature of AIDS. Among the authors discussed are Guy Hocquenghem, Herve Guibert, and Michel Foucault.

The subject of this original and provocative work is the white male body, a counterpoint in gender studies to the many readings of the representation of the female body. To look at the construction of this figure, the author examines a group of discontinuous works that are representative of the discontinuity in the intermittent representation of the male body.
Especially in nineteenth-century narrative, where Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant write astutely on the subject, there is never continuity in representing the male body. "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Bel-Ami" are flickering, episodic investigations into the male body as subject, as sentient feeling, as the subject of torture or of adulation. Not until the twentieth century can this male subject be continuously represented. Though the male body is often at center stage, in works that treat it as a metonymy of its own phallic and phallocentric power, this body has less often been seen relative to pleasure and pain, to aesthetics, to human vulnerability.
An introductory chapter explores a work by Alberto Moravia, "Io e lui," as well as various manifestations of the male body's most salient part, the penis, in contemporary discourse and aesthetics. Another chapter deals with writings about the forbidden activity of masturbation and focuses on the work of three disparate writers: Paul Bonnetain, Michel Tournier, and Philip Roth.
In the final chapter, the author discusses several works that focus on the representation of the male body during the gay liberation movement in France and the subsequent celebration of the male body, ending with the inscription of the male body in the literature of AIDS. Among the authors discussed are Guy Hocquenghem, Herve Guibert, and Michel Foucault.

The Fascist State of Mind and the Manufacturing of Masculinity: A psychoanalytic approach attempts to describe in psychoanalytic terms the psychological consequences of massive social trauma and national humiliation, and the regression that takes place within the individual under these circumstances. The book is not about understanding fascism as a historical, political or sociological phenomenon, but about understanding the special relationship between masculinity and fascism and "the state of mind" which both shaped, and was shaped by, the historical phenomenon of fascism.

Christina Wieland explores fascism as a product of certain forms of masculinity and focuses on the dynamics of masculinity as a mode of psychic functioning. She examines in detail masculine anxieties and defences and their interaction with stresses of modernity and with the social and political unrest that followed World War One. "

The Fascist State of Mind and the Manufacturing of Masculinity" is divided into four parts:

Part One The meaning of fascism and the fascist state of mind theories and definitions

Part Two Masculinity, its meaning and its vulnerability

Part Three Group and group theory, and the total environment

Part Four Exploring the links between masculinity, groups and fascism

The Fascist State of Mind and the Manufacturing of Masculinity uses clinical material, literary texts, and extensive psychoanalytic interpretation of some passages from Mein Kampf to illustrate the interplay of the psychological processes with social and political events. This book will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, teachers and students of psychoanalysis and gender studies. It will also appeal to those interested in the application of psychoanalytic insights in the understanding of social and political phenomena. "

The Big Idea shortlisted for series design in the British Design and Production Awards In the wake of the #MeToo movement and the upsurge in feminist and men's rights activism, traditional masculinity has become a topic of impassioned debate. But what exactly do we mean by 'masculinity' and in what ways can it be said to be harmful? This incisive volume evaluates modern masculinity's capacity for good against its potential for destruction. It reviews evolving definitions of masculinity since the age of chivalry and examines our current expectations about men's behaviours, roles and responsibilities. It reveals societal pressure on men to act aggressively, suppress emotion and be in control, and the impact of being a 'real man' on self and others.

The ideologies and practices of various populist movements are centered on issues of gender, especially idealized notions of masculinity. Offering cultural, political, and historical approaches from a range of interdisciplinary and international perspectives, The Culture and Politics of Populist Masculinities analyzes articulations and performances that link populism to masculinity. In particular, the collection studies political participation in the form of public debates, media, and popular culture. The authors emphasize that in order to understand what can be defined as populism, we need to look at the culture that it inhabits and the efforts to claim, challenge, and reclaim the popular. Writing from a wide range of international contexts, the contributors to The Culture and Politics of Populist Masculinities explore how populist masculinities are articulated and performed, whether there is something problematic about a specifically masculine populism, and whether there is hope for a pluralist, inclusive, even progressive form of masculine populism. Culture and Politics of Populist Masculinities' international range of contributors explore how populist masculinities are articulated and performed, whether there is something problematic about a specifically masculine populism, and whether there is hope for a pluralist, inclusive, even progressive form of masculine populism.

Stereotyped as delicate and feeble intellectuals, Jewish men in German-speaking lands in fact developed a rich and complex spectrum of male norms, models, and behaviors. Jewish Masculinities explores conceptions and experiences of masculinity among Jews in Germany from the 16th through the late 20th century as well as emigrants to North America, Palestine, and Israel. The volume examines the different worlds of students, businessmen, mohels, ritual slaughterers, rabbis, performers, and others, shedding new light on the challenge for Jewish men of balancing German citizenship and cultural affiliation with Jewish communal solidarity, religious practice, and identity.

This volume presents a series of illustrative and critical perspectives upon the developing study of men and masculinities and its importance for sociological theory. The contributions, by women and men from Britain and the United States, are organized around the unifying themes of Power and Domination; Sexuality; Identity and Perception. Feminism has raised profound questions for the social sciences, for sociological theory and for the study of men. The contributors to this volume discuss how such questions can be addressed. They demonstrate the range of theoretical traditions that can be brought to bear on the study of men, and underline the importance of understanding 'masculinities' in the plural. In a concluding section, three different views upon the controversy surrounding 'Men's Studies' are presented.

While there has been a gradual increase in scholarship on men, ageing and masculinities, little attention has been paid to the social relations of men in later life and the implications for enhancing their social wellbeing and counteracting ageist discourse. Bringing together scholars in social gerontology and the social sciences from across Global North and South nations, this collection fills the gaps in key texts by foregrounding older men's experiences. It provides new perspectives across the intersections of old age, ethnicities, class and sexual and gender identity, paying particular attention to older men from seldom heard or marginalised groups.

Homosexuality and the European Court of Human Rights is the first book-length study of the Court's jurisprudence in respect of sexual orientation. It provides a socio-legal analysis of the substantial number of decisions and judgments of the Strasbourg organs on the wide range of complaints brought by gay men and lesbians under the European Convention on Human Rights. Providing a systematic analysis of Strasbourg case law since 1955 and examining decades of decisions that have hitherto remained obscure, the book considers the evolution of the Court's interpretation of the Convention and how this has fashioned lesbian and gay rights in Europe. Going beyond doctrinal analysis by employing a nuanced sociological consideration of Strasbourg jurisprudence, Paul Johnson shows how the Court is a site at which homosexuality is both socially constructed and regulated. He argues that although the Convention is conceived as a 'living instrument' to be interpreted 'in the light of present-day conditions' the Court's judgments have frequently forged and advanced new social conditions in respect of homosexuality. Johnson argues that the Court's jurisprudence has an extra-legal importance because it provides an authoritative and powerful discursive resource that can be mobilized by lesbians and gay men to challenge homophobic and heteronormative social relations in contemporary societies. As such, the book considers how the Court's interpretation of the Convention might be evolved in the future to better protect lesbian and gay rights and lives.

100 men bare all in a collection of photographs and interviews about manhood and 'manhood'. These days we are all less bound by gender and traditional roles, but is there more confusion about what being a man means? From veteran to vicar, from porn addict to prostate cancer survivor, men from all walks of life share honest reflections about their bodies, sexuality, relationships, fatherhood, work and health in this pioneering and unique book. Just as Bare Reality: 100 women, their breasts, their stories presented the un-airbrushed truth about breasts for women, Manhood: The Bare Reality shows us the spectrum of 'normal', revealing men's penises and bodies in all their diversity and glory, dispelling body image anxiety and myths. Sensitive and compassionate, Manhood will surprise you and reassure you. It may even make you reconsider what you think you know about men, their bodies and masculinity.

The fashioning of English gentlemen in the eighteenth century was modelled on French practices of sociability and conversation. Michele Cohen shows how at the same time, the English constructed their cultural relations with the French as relations of seduction and desire. She argues that this produced anxiety on the part of the English over the effect of French practices on English masculinity and the virtue of English women.
By the end of the century, representing the French as an effeminate other was integral to the forging of English, masculine national identity. Michele Cohen examines the derogation of women and the French which accompanied the emergent 'masculine' English identity. While taciturnity became emblematic of the English gentleman's depth of mind and masculinity, sprightly conversation was seen as representing the shallow and inferior intellect of English women and the French of both sexes.
Michele Cohen also demonstrates how visible evidence of girls' verbal and language learning skills served only to construe the female mind as inferior. She argues that this perception still has currency today.

Building a Better Man presents a theory and science based discussion of masculinity in modern America, but it also does much more than that-it interweaves a diverse group of compelling personal stories with an exploration of aggression and masculinity in the socialization of boys and men. Where other programs tend to subtly denigrate men as perpetrators and focus on stopping the problematic behavior, Building a Better Man tries to understand the external forces that impinge on the developmental experiences of boys/men and broadens the scope of inquiry into their behavior by reviewing a range of external societal forces that contribute to the problems. Clinicians and group leaders will find that the approach laid out in Building a Better Man leaves clients feeling understood more than judged, which provides a different motivation for change and can set treatment on an entirely different and infinitely more productive path.

Exploring the similarities and differences between and across masculinities in the Middle East and the West, Postcolonial Masculinities avoids the constant reinforcement of divisions and stereotypes created by the process of 'othering' and the problematic discourse of the clash of civilisations, examining instead how subjectivities in Western and Arab societies are intertwined, operating through envy of the other and the desire to be at once the same and yet fundamentally separate. With a focus on England and Egypt, this book reveals the manner in which masculinities are shaped in and through a history of colonialism and postcolonialism, irrespective of colour, ethnicity, religion, class, sexuality, or the wishes of the individual. By concentrating on the shared ground of postcolonial, masculine subjectivities, Postcolonial Masculinities looks beyond the dissonance often iterated between the apparently rational Western man and the apparently oppressive, patriarchal Middle Eastern man. Shedding light on the shared and distinctive aspects of masculinities across the Middle East and the West, whilst illuminating the influences upon them, this book will appeal to social scientists with interests in cultural studies, masculinities, psychoanalytic theory, gender and sexuality, and colonialism and postcolonialism.

Outstanding range of curated materials showing the development of transgender studies Includes historical perspective from 1910 up to the latest research Interdisciplinary in nature Accurate account of theoretical interventions in the field * The definitive volume in the field of transgender studies and history of sexuality. There is no other book out there like this one * Contains classic essays and the most modern pieces available in the field * The editors are trans celebrities and have broad appeal in the transgender communities in the US and UK

Cinema has long been recognised as the privileged bridge between Soviet ideologies and their mass public. Recent feminist-oriented work has drawn out the symbolic role of women in Soviet culture, but, not surprisingly, men too were expected to play their part. In this first full-length study of masculinity in Stalinist Soviet cinema, John Haynes examines the 'New Soviet Man' not only as an ideal of masculinity presented to Soviet cinemagoers, but also, precisely, as a man in his specific, and hotly debated social, cultural and political context. A detailed analysis of Stalinist discourse sets the stage for an examination of the imagined relationship between the patriarch Stalin and his 'model sons' in the key genre cycles of the era: from the capital to the collective farms, and ultimately to the very borders of the Soviet state. Informed by contemporary and present day debates over the social and cultural significance of cinema and masculinity, New Soviet Man draws on a range of theoretical and comparative material to produce engaging and accessible readings accounting for both the appeal of, and the inherent potential for subversion within, films produced by the Stalinist culture industry. New Soviet Man will be widely read by students and specialists in the fields of film studies, Russian and Soviet studies, gender and modern European history. -- .

The Calling Blighty series of films produced by the Combined Kinematograph Service produced towards the end of the Second World War were one-reel films in which soldiers gave short spoken messages to the camera as a means of connecting the front line and the home front. These are the first ever films where men speak openly in their regional accents, and they have profound meaning for remembrance, documentary representation and the ecology of film in wartime. Of the 400 films (or 'issues') made, 64 survive. Each of those contained around 25 individual messages. Men - and a very few women - from a particular city, town or region were grouped together for the films to make regional screenings back in UK cinemas and town halls possible. Personnel from all three services are featured, but the men are predominantly from the army units. Screenings took place at a cinema in the subjects' local area and were usually organised by the regional Army Welfare Committee. The names and addresses of those to be invited to the screenings were sent to the UK along with the films. Until now, these films have barely been researched, and yet are a valuable source of social history as well as representing a different mode from the mainstream of British wartime documentary. This book expands the history of Calling Blighty and places it in a broader context, both past and present. New research reveals the origins of the film series and draws comparisons with written and oral contemporary sources. Steve Hawley is an artist/filmmaker whose work has been screened worldwide, and has collaborated closely with the North West Film Archive UK. He is emeritus professor at the Manchester Metropolitan University UK. Using memoirs and diaries, Steve Hawley has researched the roles in the Burma campaign of participants in the surviving films, and traced over 160 of the families of the men - and two men still alive - and recreated these wartime screenings. Hawley's book is part description of the films, part reclamation of a largely unknown genre of wartime filmmaking, partly an account of the Burma campaign, and partly a discussion of war and memory. Engagingly and warmly written. It will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the areas of war studies, especially those specializing in the social rather than military history of warfare, and historians of British wartime cinema and documentary. Also useful for an undergraduate audience, in history, media/film studies. Potential for readers with an interest in the Second World War, particularly the war in Burma, and those with an interest in family history of the period.