Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture

Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture PDF Author: Stefan Horlacher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317077113
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Analyzing literary texts, plays, films and photographs within a transatlantic framework, this volume explores the inseparable and mutually influential relationship between different forms of national identity in Great Britain and the United States and the construction of masculinity in each country. The contributors take up issues related to how certain kinds of nationally specific masculine identifications are produced, how these change over time, and how literature and other forms of cultural representation eventually question and deconstruct their own myths of masculinity. Focusing on the period from the end of World War II to the 1980s, the essays each take up a topic with particular cultural and historical resonance, whether it is hypermasculinity in early cold war films; the articulation of male anxieties in plays by Arthur Miller, David Mamet and Sam Shepard; the evolution of photographic depictions of masculinity from the 1960s to the 1980s; or the representations of masculinity in the fiction of American and British writers such as Patricia Highsmith, Richard Yates, John Braine, Martin Amis, Evan S. Connell, James Dickey, John Berger, Philip Roth, Frank Chin, and Maxine Hong Kingston. The editors and contributors make a case for the importance of understanding the larger context for the emergence of more pluralistic, culturally differentiated and ultimately transnational masculinities, arguing that it is possible to conceptualize and emphasize difference and commonality simultaneously.

Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture

Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture PDF Author: Stefan Horlacher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317077113
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Analyzing literary texts, plays, films and photographs within a transatlantic framework, this volume explores the inseparable and mutually influential relationship between different forms of national identity in Great Britain and the United States and the construction of masculinity in each country. The contributors take up issues related to how certain kinds of nationally specific masculine identifications are produced, how these change over time, and how literature and other forms of cultural representation eventually question and deconstruct their own myths of masculinity. Focusing on the period from the end of World War II to the 1980s, the essays each take up a topic with particular cultural and historical resonance, whether it is hypermasculinity in early cold war films; the articulation of male anxieties in plays by Arthur Miller, David Mamet and Sam Shepard; the evolution of photographic depictions of masculinity from the 1960s to the 1980s; or the representations of masculinity in the fiction of American and British writers such as Patricia Highsmith, Richard Yates, John Braine, Martin Amis, Evan S. Connell, James Dickey, John Berger, Philip Roth, Frank Chin, and Maxine Hong Kingston. The editors and contributors make a case for the importance of understanding the larger context for the emergence of more pluralistic, culturally differentiated and ultimately transnational masculinities, arguing that it is possible to conceptualize and emphasize difference and commonality simultaneously.

Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture

Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture PDF Author: Stefan Horlacher
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781315601748
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description


White Male Nostalgia in Contemporary North American Literature

White Male Nostalgia in Contemporary North American Literature PDF Author: Tim Engles
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319904604
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
White Male Nostalgia in Contemporary North American Literature charts the late twentieth-century development of reactionary emotions commonly felt by resentful, yet often goodhearted white men. Examining an eclectic array of literary case studies in light of recent work in critical whiteness and masculinity studies, history, geography, philosophy and theology, Tim Engles delineates five preliminary forms of white male nostalgia—as dramatized in novels by Sloan Wilson, Richard Wright, Carol Shields, Don DeLillo, Louis Begley and Margaret Atwood—demonstrating how literary fiction can help us understand the inner workings of deluded dominance. These authors write from identities outside the defensive domain of normalized white masculinity, demonstrating via extended interior dramas that although nostalgia is primarily thought of as an emotion felt by individuals, it also works to shore up entrenched collective power.

Beyond Gender

Beyond Gender PDF Author: Greta Olson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317214552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 539

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Book Description
Scholars and activists often narrate the history of gender and feminism as a progression of "waves," said to mark high points of innovation in theory and moments of political breakthrough. Arguing for the notion of multiple futurities over that of progressive waves, Beyond Gender combines theoretical work with practical applications to provide an advanced introduction to contemporary feminist and sexuality research and advocacy. This comprehensive monograph documents the diversification of gender-related disciplines and struggles, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach to issues formerly subsumed under the unified field of gender studies. Split into two parts, the volume demonstrates how the notion of gender has been criticized by various theories pertaining to masculinity, feminism, and sexuality, and also illustrates how the binary and hierarchical ordering system of gender has been troubled or overcome in practice: in queer performance, legal critique, the classroom, and textual analysis. Taking a fresh approach to contemporary debates in feminist and sexuality studies, Beyond Gender will appeal to undergraduate students interested in fields such as Feminism and Sexuality Studies, Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, and Masculinity Studies.

Leading with the Chin

Leading with the Chin PDF Author: Brad Congdon
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487515960
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Leading with the Chin focuses on the Esquire writings of James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo, Norman Mailer, and Tim O’Brien to examine how these authors negotiated important shifts in American masculinity. Using the works of these six authors as case studies, Leading with the Chin argues that Esquire permitted writers to confront national fantasies of American masculinity as they were impacted by the rise of neoliberalism, civil rights and gay rights, and the cultural dominance of the professional-managerial class. Applying the methodologies of periodical studies and the theoretical concerns of masculinity studies, this book recontextualizes the prose and fiction of these authors by analyzing them in the material context of the magazine. Relating each author’s articulation of masculinity to the advertisements, editorials, and articles published in each issue, Leading with the Chin shows that Esquire reflected and helped to shape the forces that structured American masculinity in the twentieth century.

War, Espionage, and Masculinity in British Fiction

War, Espionage, and Masculinity in British Fiction PDF Author: Susan L. Austin
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648896316
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
'War, Espionage, and Masculinity in British Fiction' explores the masculinities represented in British works spanning more than a century. Studies of Rudyard Kipling’s 'The Light That Failed' (1891) and Erskine Childer’s 'The Riddle of the Sands' (1903) investigate masculinities from before World War I, at the height of the British Empire. A discussion of R.C. Sherriff’s play 'Journey’s End' takes readers to the battlefields of World War I, where duty and the harsh realities of modern warfare require men to perform, perhaps to die, perhaps to be unmanned by shellshock. From there we see how Dorothy Sayers developed the character of Peter Wimsey as a model of masculinity, both strong and successful despite his own shellshock in the years between the world wars. Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter (1948) and The Quiet American (1955) show masculinities shaken and questioning their roles and their country’s after neither world war ended all wars and the Empire rapidly lost ground. Two chapters on 'The Innocent' (1990), Ian McEwan’s fictional account of a real collaboration between Great Britain and the United States to build a tunnel that would allow them to spy on the Soviet Union, dig deeply into the 1950’s Cold War to examine the fictional masculinity of the British protagonist and the real world and fictional masculinities projected by the countries involved. Explorations of Ian Fleming’s 'Casino Royale' (1953) and 'The Living Daylights' (1962) continue the Cold War theme. Discussion of the latter film shows a confident, infallible masculinity, optimistic at the prospect of glasnost and the potential end of Cold War hostilities. John le Carré’s 'The Night Manager' (1993) and its television adaptation take espionage past the Cold War. The final chapter on Ian McEwan’s 'Saturday' (2005) shows one man’s reaction to 9/11.

Contemporary Masculinities in the UK and the US

Contemporary Masculinities in the UK and the US PDF Author: Stefan Horlacher
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319508202
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book is about ways to understand masculinity as systemic and corporeal, structural and performative all at once. It argues that the tension between an understanding of “masculinity” in the singular and “masculinities” in the plural poses a problem that can better be understood in relation to a concomitant tension: between systems on the one hand, and bodies on the other - between abstract structures such as patriarchy, kinship or even language, and the various concrete forms taken by gendered, individuated corporeality. The contributions collected here investigate how masculinities become apparent, how they take shape and what systemic functions they have. What, they ask, are the relations between the abstract and corporeal, metaphorical and metonymic manifestations of masculinity? How are we to understand masculinity as a simultaneously systemic and corporeal, performative concept?

Representations of Masculinity in Literature and Film

Representations of Masculinity in Literature and Film PDF Author: Sara Martín
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527559300
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
How are men represented on the printed page, the stage and the screen? What do these representations say about masculinity in the past, the present, and the future? The twelve essays in this volume explore the different ways in which men and masculinity have been represented, from the plays of William Shakespeare to the science fiction of Richard K. Morgan, passing through classic fiction by Emily Brontë and Charles Dickens, and popular favourites by Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov, without forgetting the Star Wars saga. Collectively, these essays argue that, although much has been written about men, it has been done from a perspective that does not see masculinity as a specific feature in need of critical appraisal. Men need to be made aware of how they are represented in order to alter the toxic patriarchal models handed down to them and even break the extant binary gender models. For that, it is important that men distinguish patriarchy from masculinity, as is done here, and form anti-patriarchal alliances with each other and with women. This book is, then, an invitation to men’s liberation from patriarchy by raising an awareness of its crippling constraints.

Missionaries in the Golden Age of Hollywood

Missionaries in the Golden Age of Hollywood PDF Author: Douglas Carl Abrams
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031191641
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book examines major British and American missionary films during the Golden Age of Hollywood to explore the significance of race, gender, and spirituality in relation to the lives of the missionaries portrayed in film during the middle third of the twentieth century. Film both influences and reflects culture, and racial, gender, and religious identities are some of the most debated issues globally today. In the movies explored in this book, missionary interactions with various people groups reflect the historical changes which took place during this time.

Tragic Novels, René Girard and the American Dream

Tragic Novels, René Girard and the American Dream PDF Author: Carly Osborn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135008350X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This book draws on the philosopher René Girard to argue that three twentieth-century American novels (Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, Rick Moody's The Ice Storm, and Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road) are tragedies. Until now, Girardian literary analysis has generally focused on representations of human desire in texts, and neglected both other emotions and the place of tragedy. Carly Osborn addresses these omissions by using Girardian theory to present evidence that novels can indeed be tragedies. The book advances the scholarship of tragedy that has run from Aristotle to Nietzsche to Terry Eagleton, proposing a new way to read modern novels through ancient traditions. In addition, this is the first work to examine the place of women as victims, or in Girardian terms, 'scapegoats', in twentieth century fiction, specifically by considering the representation of women's bodies and ambivalence about their identities. In deploying a rich and vivid array of tragic tropes, The Virgin Suicides, The Ice Storm, and Revolutionary Road participate in a deep-rooted American tragic tradition. Tragic Novels, the American Dream and René Girard will be of interest to those working at the intersection of philosophy and literature, as well as Girard specialists.