Recently, the U.S. has seen a rise in misogynistic and race-based violence perpetrated by men expressing a sense of grievance, from "incels" to alt-right activists. Grounding sociological, historical, political, and economic analyses of masculinity through the lens of cultural narratives in many forms and expressions, The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture suggests that how we examine the stories that shape us in turn shapes our understanding of our current reality and gives us language for imagining better futures.
Masculinity is more than a description of traits associated with particular performances of gender. It is more than a study of gender and social power. It is an examination of the ways in which gender affects our capacity to engage ethically with each other in complex human societies. This volume offers essays from a range of established, global experts in American masculinity as well as new and upcoming scholars in order to explore not just what masculinity once meant, has come to mean, and may mean in the future in the U.S.; it also articulates what is at stake with our conceptions of masculinity.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Lydia R. Cooper
Part I: A Literary and Cultural History of American Masculinity
Chapter 1: Studying Masculinities in/through U.S. Literature: Origins, Development, and Future Josep M. Armengol
Chapter 2: Masculinities in Early America Eran Zelnik
Chapter 3: The Marrow of White Supremacy: Problematic White Masculinity in Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition Hyoseol Ha
Chapter 4: A Crisis in (Female) Masculinity: My Ántonia and the Imaginative Recreation of the Western Frontier Rachel Warner
Chapter 5: Boy, One Day You’ll Be a Man: Adolescent Masculinity in Post-War American Culture Angelica De Vido
Chapter 6: Lighting Out for the Territories: Ecomasculinities in U.S. American Literature Stefan L. Brandt
Part II: Current Crises and New Directions
Chapter 7: "Queer(y)ing Masculinities: Revisited" Bryant Keith Alexander
Chapter 8: Heterostalgia: The Logic of Antifeminism Michael Mayne
Chapter 9: Hideous Men: David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews in Hindight Erin Spampinato
Chapter 10: Dominance-Based Man Box Culture and White Supremacy Mark Greene
Part III: War, Violence, and American Masculinity
Chapter 11: When the Sun Sets in the East: American Manhood and War Since Vietnam Ty Hawkins
Chapter 12: The U.S. Army "Warrior" and Military Masculinity: The Army Recruiting Campaigns and Evolving "Warrior" Hyunyoung Moon
Chapter 13: From Toxic Fantasy to Political Satire: Masculinity in Chuck Palahniuk’s Post-Fight Club Fiction Coco d’Hont
Chapter 14: Frame Thy Fearful Masculinity: Locating a Queer Masculinity in Marvel’s The Punisher Reed Puc
Chapter 15: Men Playing Together: New Masculinities, Sport, and Contemporary Fiction Ryan Lackey
Part IV: Geographies of Masculinity
Chapter 16: "To Work Without Stopping": Masculinity and the Midwestern Farm Novel Andy Oler
Chapter 17: Outlaw America: The Legacy of Jesse James and Ron Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Lydia R. Cooper
Chapter 18: The Counter-Masculine Drive in Contemporary Reimaginations of the American Road-Trip Narrative Nicole Dib
Chapter 19: A Poetics of Refusal: Queer Indigenous Masculinity in Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem John Gamber
Chapter 20: Negotiating the Intersections of Masculinity, Disability, and Normative Gender Roles in the U.S./Mexico Borderlands: The Tragedy of the Self-Made Man Rosemary Briseño
Part V: Representation in Contemporary Literature, Film, TV, and New Media
Chapter 21: An Empathetic Art: Renwen仁文Masculinity in Asian American Literature King-Kok Cheung
Chapter 22: Inspiration Porn, Reclamation Porn: A View of Crip Masculinity and Micro-celebrity T. Tikka and R. Noam Ostrander
Chapter 23: Father Figures and New Masculinities in Contemporary U.S. Literature: Hegemonic and Counter-hegemonic Strategies of Paternal Representation Sara Villamarín-Freire
Chapter 24: "I’m making up for all those years when I didn’t even know I had a cock": Toxic Masculinity in Gay Erotic Fiction Mica Hilson
Chapter 25: Inverting the Gaze: White Male Terror in Film Since Classic Hollywood David Pass
Chapter 26: The Erasure of Asexuality: Sheldon’s Masculinity in The Big Bang Theory Jana Fedtke
Chapter 27: Fetishization of Female Masculinity in She-Hulk, Big Barda and The Mighty Thor Hailey J. Austin
