Synopses & Reviews
We are just beginning to understand masculinity as a fiction or a localizable, historical, and therefore unstable construct. This book points the way to a much-needed interrogation of the many modes of masculinity, as represented in literature. Both women and men who are engaged in critical thinking about genders and sexualities will find these essays always thoughtful and often provocative.
Thas E. Morgan, Associate Professor of English, Arizona State University
Peter Murphy has assembled an innovative, challenging, and important set of contributions to a growing field of inquiry into constructions of masculinities in literature, inspired principally by feminist and gay studies. Illuminatingly crossing lines of genders, sexualities, cultures, and methodologies, Fictions of Masculinity greatly advances our understanding of representations of men, masculinities, misandry, and misogyny in a wide range of literary works and genres, and helps us to imagine (and thereby ultimately bring about) alternative constructions.
Harry Brod, Editor, The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies, A Mensch Among Men: Explorations in Jewish Masculinity, and Theorizing Masculinities.
Women writing about women dominates contemporary work on sexuality. Men have been far more willing to discuss female sexuality than male sexuality, while the most radical and insightful analyses of male sexuality have come from women. When men consider the issue of female sexuality they often speak from assumptions of security about their own unexamined sexuality. This book maintains that men have to interrogate their own sexuality if there is to be a revision of phallocentric discourse; and, that this revision of masculinity must be done in dialogue with women.
The essays included in this collection examine the deep structure of masculine codes. They ask the question Who are the men in modern literature? Examining the force of the dominant values of Western masculinity, they synthesize insights from feminism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and new historicism. These perspectives help explain how male sexuality has been structured by fictional representations.
By examining the images of masculinity in modern literature, the essays explore traditional and non-traditional roles of men in society and in personal relationships. They look at how men are represented in literature, the fiction of manhood. They attempt to unravel the assumptions behind these representations by looking at the implications of this imagination. And they speculate on possibilities for creating a new imaginary of masculinity by identifying what literature has to say about that change.
With analyses of a range of genres (novels, poetry, plays and autobiography), Western and Third World literatures, and theoretical perspectives, Fictions of Masculinity provides a significant contribution to this rapidly growing field of study.
Contributors are: David Bergman (Towson State University), Miriam Cooke (Duke University), Martin Danahy (Emory University), Richard Dellamora (Trent University, Ontario), Leonard Duroche (University of Minnesota), Jim Elledge (Illinois State University), Alfred Habegger (University of Kansas), Suzanne Kehde (California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo), David Leverenz (University of Florida), Christopher Metress (Wake Forest University), Peter F. Murphy (SUNY, Empire State College), Rafael Prez-Torres (University of Pennsylvania), David Radavich (Eastern Illinois University), and Peter Schwenger (St. Vincent University, Nova Scotia).
Review
"While feminist critics have re-invented the canon, studies of male authors have remained oddly ungendered. The authors in Peter Murphy's enlightening collection hold male authors up to a `gender lens' to explore how in their lives and in their texts, these writers were working out issues of masculinity and sexuality. The refreshing results cross all boundaries cultural, sexual, even disciplinary." -Michael S. Kimmel,SUNY, Stony Brook, Editor, Men's Lives and Men Confront Pornography
Review
"Price (Wesleyan Univ.) utilizes different research methods to illuminate the complex characteristics of black nationalist ideology among African Americans. The book's strength is its combination of analyses of focus group data as well as large survey data sets. The material from focus groups paints a vivid picture of real people discussing these issues, and this allows the author to illustrate many of her key points."-CHOICE,
Review
“Price has given us one of the few and one of the best studies of Black Nationalism and African American public opinion. She goes beyond the Malcolm v. Martin binary to interrogate the tendencies toward separatism and integrationism that are present in virtually all African Americans.”
-Charles P. Henry,author of Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations
Synopsis
Black Nationalism is one of the oldest and most enduring ideological constructs developed by African Americans to make sense of their social and political worlds. In
Dreaming Blackness, Melanye T. Price explores the current understandings of Black Nationalism among African Americans, providing a balanced and critical view of today's black political agenda. She argues that Black Nationalism continues to enjoy moderate levels of support by most black citizens but has a more difficult time gaining a larger stronghold because of increasing diversity among blacks and a growing emphasis on individualism over collective struggle. She shows that black interests are a dynamic negotiation among various interested groups and suggests that those differences are not just important for the "black agenda" but also for how African Americans think and dialogue about black political questions daily.
Using a mix of everyday talk and impressive statistical data to explain contemporary black opinions, Price highlights the ways in which Black Nationalism works in a "post-racial" society. Ultimately, Price offers a multilayered portrait of African American political opinions, providing a new understanding of race specific ideological views and their impact on African Americans, persuasively illustrating that Black Nationalism is an ideology that scholars and politicians should not dismiss.
About the Author
Peter F. Murphy is the Assistant Dean and an Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at SUNY, Empire State College.