Performing Masculinity

Were there male celebrity bodies before David Beckham? When did male dancers start playing a part -- and which one? Was Victorian masculinity all in earnest before Oscar Wilde? What kind of masculinity does cricket promote? What is 'Cock Rock'? How can we understand Chinese American masculinities? Do contemporary computer games have a gender? These and even more questions are addressed in the present study through contemporary theories of masculinity and performativity. The answers that experts from many different fields of Literary, Cultural and Media Studies provide add up to a survey of modern masculinities, its precursors, its manifestations across different genres and different media, as well as its continuing challenges and impasses.

Table of Contents:
Notes on Contributors Foreword; J.Bristow Introduction; R.Emig and A.Rowland Touching Byron: Masculinity and the Celebrity Body in the Romantic Period; D.Saglia Turning into Subjects: The Male Dancer in Romantic Ballet; G.Siegmund Industrial Heroes: Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte's Constructions of the Masculine; J.L.Malay Low on Assurance: The Troubled Masculinity of Victorian Comedy; R.Emig Performing Imperial Masculinities: The Discourse and Practice of Cricket; A.Bateman 'A Stoat Came to Tea': Camp Poetics and Masculinity; A.Rowland Lethal Enclosure: Masculinity under Fire in James Jones's The Thin Red Line; D.Boulting In their Fathers' Footsteps: Performing Masculinity and Fatherhood in the Work of Les Murray and Michael Ondaatje; K.Burkitt Seeding Asian Masculinities in the U.S. Landscape: Representations of Men's Lives in Asian American Literature; W.Ho From Glam Rock to Cock Rock: Revis(it)ing Rock Masculinities in Recent Feature Films; L.Kramer Histories of Violence -- Fairytales of Identity and Masculinity in Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman; W.Funk 'Ghosts of Sparta': Performing the God of War's Virtual Masculinity; S.Schmalfuss Notes Index

About the Author :
RAINER EMIG is Chair of English Literature and Culture at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany. His research interests centre on the link between literature, culture and the media and theories of identity, power, gender and sexuality. His publications include Modernism in Poetry (1995), W.H. Auden: Towards a Postmodern Poetics (1999), and Stereotypes in Contemporary Anglo-German Relations (edited, 2000). ANTONY ROWLAND is Professor of English at the University of Salford, UK. His research interests include memory studies, Holocaust studies, contemporary poetry and masculinity. His publications include Signs of Masculinity (edited, 1999), 'Choosing Tough Words': The Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy (edited, 2003) and Holocaust Poetry (2005). He has also published a collection of poetry entitled The Land of Green Ginger (2008).