Time and Location

Next taught in Spring 2016

Description

This course adopts a comparative historical approach to the study of masculinity, drawing from an interdisciplinary scholarship that has burgeoned in the last twenty-five years.     

Important themes treated by this scholarship include:

• Political Roles/Citizenship
• Nationalism/Imperialism
• Patriotism/War (men as protectors)
• Aggression, Violence, Sexual Practices
• Racial Ideologies (white racial supremacy, black nationalism, red power)
• Manliness/ Moral character/Honor/Manners/Gentility
• Homosociality and Male Bonding
• Heterosexuality, Procreation and Marriage
• Fatherhood/Parenting
• Labor/ Leisure
• Sports/Bodies/Sex
• Sexuality, Morality, Emotionality
• Cultural Representations (Literature, film, music, media)

This course will examine as many of these themes as we can fit into fifteen weeks, ranging across time and taken from different national contexts.  We will be interested in such questions as:  In a given place and time, how did one learn to be a man?  What were the most significant attributes of a good man? What role did various institutions and cultural practices (e.g. church, state, family, school, media) have in fashioning masculinity?  What impact does race (or class or religion or nationality, etc.) have on ideals of masculinity?  Do different racial groups/economic classes have different notions of what ideal masculinity entails?  How does masculinity relate to or figure in the development of colonialism, nationalism, war, politics, sports, entertainment, etc.?

Objectives

• To introduce students to a vibrant inter-disciplinary field of scholarship
• To expand students’ awareness of non-US cultures
• To foster an appreciation of the value in adopting a comparative historical approach to the study of masculinity

Syllabus

[Most Recent] Syllabus.pdf