Masculinity and the Other: Historical Perspectives
Editor: Heather Ellis and Jessica Meyer
Date Of Publication: Feb 2009
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0151-5
Isbn: 1-4438-0151-8
Histories of masculinity have generally examined both social ideologies of masculinity and subjective male identities within frameworks that define them against the feminine. Yet historians and sociologists have increasingly argued that men have been and continue to be defined both socially and subjectively as much by their relations to other men as in relation to women. This collection brings together the work of scholars of masculinities working in a variety of fields, including literature, history and art history, to examine some of the forms of 'otherness' against which ideas of masculinity have been defined throughout history. The collection reflects the current breadth of scholarship relating to the study of masculine alterity. While the subjects addressed are largely historical, the time span covered is broad and the disciplinary approaches to the subject matter are equally wide-ranging. A huge variety of men, masculine behaviours and definitions of masculinity are considered in an exciting and invigorating collection that showcases both established academics and emerging scholars in the field.

Heather Ellis is a junior lecturer and researcher in British History and Society at the Centre For British Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin. She recently completed her doctorate in Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford. Her thesis explored the importance of intergenerational conflict in the process of university reform in nineteenth-century Oxford. Her publications include "Newman and Arnold: Classics, Christianity and Manliness in Tractarian Oxford" in Oxford Classics: Teaching and Learning 1800-2000, Christopher Stray, ed. (London: Duckworth, 2007) and "'This starting, feverish heart': Matthew Arnold and the Problem of Manliness", Critical Survey 20:3 (forthcoming, December 2008) She has also edited a special issue of Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies 2:2(Fall 2008)on the theme of "Boys, Boyhood and the Construction of Masculinity."

Jessica Meyer holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Cambridge. Her publications include articles on shell shock, wives of disabled ex-servicemen, popular British literature and age and authority. She is the editor of British Popular Culture and the First World War (Brill, 2008) and the author of Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). She is currently researching a history of the wedding in Britain and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

“Masculinity and the Other propels the field of masculinity studies into a new age. It brings together some of the most dynamic young scholars in the field, to address questions of 'otherness' and gender in exciting new ways. The volume radiates with intellectual vitality. It promises to significantly enrich our understanding of the lived experience of men in the past, in all their complexity. It is a 'must read'.”

Professor Joanna Bourke, author of Dismembering the Male, among other works.

"Heather Ellis and Jessica Meyer have given an exciting conference the full public exposure that it deserved. By focusing on masculinity's multiple others in contrasted locations, this volume provides a cogent theoretical critique and a wealth of illuminating case-studies."

John Tosh, Roehampton University

“This wideranging and stimulating collection of studies of Masculinity and the Other both takes stock of and extends an important and burgeoning field. The pieces are specific but create together a coherent and well structured book. The Introduction tackles the conceptual issues at stake with verve and perception.”

Anthony Fletcher: Author of Growing Up in England: The Experience of Childhood (1600-1914), retired professor of history at the University of Essex.

"Because of the wide-ranging time-span covered by the essays, they demonstrate an ability to read history through a lens of masculinity in quite different contexts and across different disciplines. They are also successful at problematizing masculinity as a construction. The book will be useful to those of us who desire to see how particular case studies of history done from this perspective might be approached."

Robert J Myles, Journal of Men, Masculinity and Spirituality, Vol. 4, No. 1, Jan 2010

Price Uk Gbp: 44.99
Price Us Usd: 67.99

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