Contested Masculinities in Modern America

This course examines masculinity in the twentieth-century United States across academic disciplines. Suspending the idea that manhood is biologically fixed or innate, this course presents masculinity as socially constructed and in a state of ongoing contest and crisis. Students will explore what it has meant (and means) to be a man in America, how masculinity has related to femininity and feminism, and masculinity's intersection with other identities like race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. Assigned materials include an array of readings in History, African and African American Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, Art History, and American Studies, along with documentary and fictional films.