Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction

2016-11-10 Law

Author : Marco Wan
Release : 2016-11-10
Genre : Law
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 879/5 ( reviews)

Book Synopsis Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction by : Marco Wan

Download or read book Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction written by Marco Wan. This book was released on 2016-11-10. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do lawyers, judges and jurors read novels? And what is at stake when literature and law confront each other in the courtroom? Nineteenth-century England and France are remembered for their active legal prosecution of literature, and this book examines the ways in which five novels were interpreted in the courtroom: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Paul Bonnetain’s Charlot s’amuse, Henry Vizetelly’s English translation of Émile Zola’s La Terre, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. It argues that each of these novels attracted legal censure because they presented figures of sexual dissidence – the androgyne, the onanist or masturbator, the patricide, the homosexual and the lesbian – that called into question an increasingly fragile normative, middleclass masculinity. Offering close readings of the novels themselves, and of legal material from the proceedings, such as the trial transcripts and judicial opinions, the book addresses both the doctrinal dimensions of Victorian obscenity and censorship, as well as the reading practices at work in the courtroom. It situates the cases in their historical context, and highlights how each trial constitutes a scene of reading – an encounter between literature and the law – through which different forms of masculinity were shaped, bolstered or challenged.

The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture

2021-12-26 Literary Criticism

Author : Lydia R. Cooper
Release : 2021-12-26
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 956/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture by : Lydia R. Cooper

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture written by Lydia R. Cooper. This book was released on 2021-12-26. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, the U.S. has seen a rise in misogynistic and race-based violence perpetrated by men expressing a sense of grievance, from "incels" to alt-right activists. Grounding sociological, historical, political, and economic analyses of masculinity through the lens of cultural narratives in many forms and expressions, The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture suggests that how we examine the stories that shape us in turn shapes our understanding of our current reality and gives us language for imagining better futures. Masculinity is more than a description of traits associated with particular performances of gender. It is more than a study of gender and social power. It is an examination of the ways in which gender affects our capacity to engage ethically with each other in complex human societies. This volume offers essays from a range of established, global experts in American masculinity as well as new and upcoming scholars in order to explore not just what masculinity once meant, has come to mean, and may mean in the future in the U.S.; it also articulates what is at stake with our conceptions of masculinity.

Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel

2014-07-16 Literary Criticism

Author : Josef Benson
Release : 2014-07-16
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 619/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel by : Josef Benson

Download or read book Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel written by Josef Benson. This book was released on 2014-07-16. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues of race, gender, women’s rights, masculinity, and sexuality continue to be debated on the national scene. These subjects have also been in the forefront of American literature, particularly in the last fifty years. One significant trend in contemporary fiction has been the failure of the heroic masculine protagonist. In Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel: Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, andJames Baldwin,Josef Benson examines key literary works of the twentieth century, notably Blood Meridian (1985), All the Pretty Horses (1992), Song of Solomon (1977), and Another Country (1960). Benson argues that exaggerated masculinities originated on the American frontier and have transformed into a definition of ideal masculinity embraced by many southern rural American men. Defined by violence, racism, sexism, and homophobia, these men concocted or perpetuated myths about African Americans to justify their mistreatment and mass murder of black men after Reconstruction. As Benson illustrates, the protagonists in these texts fail to perpetuate hypermasculinities, and as a result a sense of ironic heroism emerges from the narratives. Offering a unique and bold argument that connects the masculinities of cowboys and frontier figures with black males, Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel suggests alternative possibilities for American men going forward. Scholars and students of American literature and culture, African American literature and culture, and queer and gender theory will find this book illuminating and persuasive.

Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction

2014-08-21 Literary Criticism

Author : Peter Ferry
Release : 2014-08-21
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 156/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction by : Peter Ferry

Download or read book Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction written by Peter Ferry. This book was released on 2014-08-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that presents masculinity as a key thematic concern in contemporary New York fiction. This study argues that New York authors do not simply depict masculinity as a social and historical construction but seek to challenge the archetypal ideals of masculinity by writing counter-hegemonic narratives. Gendering canonical New York writers, namely Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and Don DeLillo, illustrates how explorations of masculinity are tied into the principal themes that have defined the American novel from its very beginning. The themes that feature in this study include the role of the novel in American society; the individual and (urban) society; the journey from innocence to awareness (of masculinity); the archetypal image of the absent and/or patriarchal father; the impact of homosocial relations on the everyday performance of masculinity; male sexuality; and the male individual and globalization. What connects these contemporary New York writers is their employment of the one of the great figures in the history of literature: the flâneur. These authors take the flâneur from the shadows of the Manhattan streets and elevate this figure to the role of self-reflexive agent of male subjectivity through which they write counter-hegemonic narratives of masculinity. This book is an essential reference for those with an interest in gender studies and contemporary American fiction.

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Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction

The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture

Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel

Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction

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