Male Matters: Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Male Body on the Line

By Calvin Thomas

Book Overview

Calvin Thomas's Male Matters
reveals the act and production of writing as a bodily, material process
that transgresses the boundaries of gender. Wise and quirky, sophisticated
and coarse, serious and hilarious, this look at male identity and creativity
and dislocation at the end of the twentieth century definitely will not
assuage male anxiety
"An excellent and important
book. . . . By mixing high and low, by speaking candidly about what we
usually keep in the (water) closet, while simultaneously engaging the
'highest' philosophies of language and culture, Thomas calls the entire
enterprise of criticism into question." -- Jeremy Earp, Journal
of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity
"A brave, indispensable
exercise in writing the male body, and a tour de force of theoretically
informed close reading." -- Kevin Floyd, Journal of the Midwest
Modern Language Association
"Both analyzes and performs
our anxieties about masculinity. . . . This experiment in criticism transgresses
boundaries of theory, gender, and academic taste in ways sure to delight
and infuriate its readers." -- Gregory Jay, author of America
the Scrivener: Deconstruction and the Subject of Literary History
"Calvin Thomas is able
to hint at a way out of the prison-house, as he puts it, of straight male
identity." -- Kathy Acker, author of In Memoriam to Identity

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 025206500X
• ISBN13: 9780252065002
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Thomas Cuts Open the Masculine Constitution

Calvin Thomas doesn't gloss over the anxieties of men at the end of the 20th century, rather, I think he gets to the roots of those anxieties and even suggests them as an identity for men. His introspection digs to the heart of what it is that is troubling: what are men, and what have men constructed? Thomas' book is a thrilling trip into the sometimes silly, often destructive and dangerous masculine mindset. I strongly recommend this text for men who are willing to explore their own discomfort with honesty and confront the fears and fictions they've created for themselves.