Springer Contemporary Masculinities in the UK and the US: Between Bodies and Systems (Global Masculinities)

This book is about ways to understand masculinity as systemic and corporeal, structural and performative all at once. It argues that the tension between an understanding of “masculinity” in the singular and “masculinities” in the plural poses a problem that can better be understood in relation to a concomitant tension: between systems on the one hand, and bodies on the other - between abstract structures such as patriarchy, kinship or even language, and the various concrete forms taken by gendered, individuated corporeality. The contributions collected here investigate how masculinities become apparent, how they take shape and what systemic functions they have. What, they ask, are the relations between the abstract and corporeal, metaphorical and metonymic manifestations of masculinity? How are we to understand masculinity as a simultaneously systemic and corporeal, performative concept?  Review “Contemporary Masculinities in the UK and the US is a very enjoyable collection of rather heterogeneous texts. … the collection accomplishes very well what it set out to do, namely to raise awareness of the gap Between Bodies and Systems.” (Monika Müller, Anglia, Vol. 138 (4), 2020) From the Back Cover This book is about ways to understand masculinity as systemic and corporeal, structural and performative all at once. It argues that the tension between an understanding of “masculinity” in the singular and “masculinities” in the plural poses a problem that can better be understood in relation to a concomitant tension: between systems on the one hand, and bodies on the other - between abstract structures such as patriarchy, kinship or even language, and the various concrete forms taken by gendered, individuated corporeality. The contributions collected here investigate how masculinities become apparent, how they take shape and what systemic functions they have. What, they ask, are the relations between the abstract and corporeal, metaphorical and metonymic manifestations of masculinity? How are we to understand masculinity as a simultaneously systemic and corporeal, performative concept?  About the Author Stefan Horlacher is Chair of English Literature at TU Dresden, Germany. He is the author of two monographs and the editor or co-editor of 17 books. His latest publications are Configuring Masculinity in Theory and Literary Practice (2015); Männlichkeit. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch / Metzler Handbook on Masculinities and Masculinity Studies (2016), and Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives (2016). Kevin Floyd is Professor of English at Kent State University, USA, a recent recipient of Fulbright and Alexander von Humboldt grants, and the author of The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism (2009; French translation 2013). His articles have appeared in journals including Social Text, Rethinking Marxism, Cultural Critique, Mediations, Science and Society, and Works and Days.