It seems that the volume Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New Directions is an attempt to negotiate different theoretical attitudes within the field of masculinity studies and gives some new theoretical impulses. Among them we can find: reconfiguration of the disciplinary languages, focus on nature and bodily affects, and focus on late capitalism's biopolitics of masculinity.
The monograph is an effect of the conference Men in Fiction held at the University of Barcelona and organized by the Spanish scholars (and volume’s editors) Joseph M. Armengol, Marta Bosch-Vilarrubias, Angels Carabí, and Teresa Requena-Pelegrí. The concept is very clear and functional. The book consists of six parts (two to three chapters each) framed by the introduction where the intentions of the book are revealed and the epilogue which presents some extracts from closing discussion. The general idea of the book is clear: in case of Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities (CSMM), we can’t make clear division between social sciences and humanities. The authors evoke Teresa de Lauretis claiming that “the representation of gender is (its) construction” (p. 2), what results in her observation that “there is no doubt that cultural representations play a key role in the social construction—and deconstruction—of masculinities” (p. 2).
Michael Kimmel’s closing remarks repeat de Lauretis assertion:
People are returning to canonical texts and are re-engendering them and beginning to tease out the ideas of gender, the ideas of masculinity and feminity that we missed the first time. […] you think that your idea of masculinity bubbles up from your body, bubbles up from your genes, there’s no images, there’s no stereotypes, no ideology involved, this is just my testosterone speaking. This is my brain chemistry speaking. And to see that my ideology, my idea of masculinity was constructed through the consumption of images, and of texts and the ways in which these texts work I think is an import ant part of decentering hegemonic masculinity. (p. 207)
These assumptions contribute to the symmetrical book construction: the (more) theoretical chapter is followed by one or (more often) two analytical chapters where theoretical framing is adapted to the analysis of literary texts, plays, movies, and so on. This structure demonstrates the possibilities offered by intermingling the CSMM theoretical apparatus with the fields of postcolonial theory (part I: Rethinking Ethnic Masculinities), political sciences and economy (part II: Transnational Masculinities, part VI: Masculinities and/in Capitalism), psychology (part III: The Ages of Men), affective theory (part IV: Masculinities and Affect), and ecology/ecocriticism (part V: Eco-Masculinities). The analyses show that dissociating masculinity from these fields deprives them from a very fundamental and, so to speak, internal dimension. In the first part where race and racial discourses are under scrutiny, Barbara Ozieblo interestingly problematizes the relation gender/ethnicity in American theater where playwrights, mainly women, tresspass the gender/ethnic borders, which results in the fact that traditional ethnic/gender classifications of authors lose its weight. The second part’s opening is Jeff Hearn’s essay pointing that masculinity shaped outside national discourses may serve in deconstructing hegemony and contribute in appearance of new “configuration of practices” of masculinity. This thesis is illustrated by two further chapters: on dehermetization of masculinity in Dominicana’s culture (Aishish Wehbe-Herera) and on contemporary US–Arab literature which shows that behind media image of an Arab man as a terrorist, more sophisticated and egalitarian visions of masculinity can be elaborated (Marta Bosch-Villarubias). The focus on aging part is opened by Lynn Segal’s essay pointing at the gendered dimension of getting older (Martin Amis’s last novels are exemplary). The affective turn of contemporary humanities is represented in the volume by Todd W. Reeser’s essay in which he delineates the perspectives of prelinguistic affectivity as a means of deconstruction of normative masculinity. Following Deleuze, Gattari, or Massumi, he shows how affects shape and establish nonhegemonic models of masculinity in pop culture. The fifth part considers masculinity from ecocritical point of view. Stefan Brandt followed through historical relations between the notion of nature and masculinity in American literary myths, Teresa Requena-Pelegrí analyzes connections between legitimizing contemporary caring masculinities and the ecological crises proving that the feminized notion of nature-as-a-resource felling prey of masculine civilization has lost its explanatory value. The last part concentrates on the closeness between modern concept of masculinity and capitalism. Penny Griffin in the opening chapter argues that, however, the question of relation between economic practices of late capitalism and privileging a particular class of men has been discussed in relevant literature is still unclear—while focusing on the architecture of financial markets with its discourses and globalizing services, she tries to demonstrate how the expansion of this model is related to (often masked) racialized and masculinized type of acting.
The wide array of theoretical conceptualizations presented in the volume maps the contemporary dimension of the disciplinary field accurately. Yet it’s not conclusive, it helps us to grasp the general idea, where the theoretical and analytical interests are relocated, how they intersect, and what are the new directions mentioned in the volume’s title. Todd W. Reeser’s remark on the notion of hegemonic masculinity, “Hegemonic masculinity is always in movement. Always. It’s never a stable thing” (p. 199), could accurately define theory itself—it’s always in movement, it’s never a stable thing. As long as it’s like that, it’s productive and interesting.
