What is Masculinity?: Historical Dynamics from Antiquity to the Contemporary World

469 Pages·2011·4.28 MB·English

by  John H. Arnold

What is Masculinity?
Genders and Sexualities in History
Series Editors: John H. Arnold, Joanna Bourke and Sean Brady
Palgrave Macmillan’s series, Genders and Sexualities in History, aims to accommodate and foster
new approaches to historical research in the fields of genders and sexualities. The series pro-
motes world-class scholarship that concentrates upon the interconnected themes of g enders,
sexualities, religions/religiosity, civil society, class formations, politics and war.
Historical studies of gender and sexuality have often been treated as disconnected fields,
while in recent years historical analyses in these two areas have synthesised, creating new
departures in historiography. By linking genders and sexualities with questions of religion,
civil society, politics and the contexts of war and conflict, this series will reflect recent devel-
opments in scholarship, moving away from the previously dominant and narrow histories of
science, scientific thought, and legal processes. The result brings together scholarship from
contemporary, modern, early modern, medieval, classical and non-Western history to provide
a diachronic forum for scholarship that incorporates new approaches to genders and sexual-
ities in history.
What is Masculinity? Historical Dynamics from Antiquity to the Contemporary World is a
groundbreaking collection of articles by scholars in Ancient History and Classics, medieval,
early modern, modern, contemporary, and non-Western fields, edited by John H. Arnold and
Sean Brady. The collection is a milestone in the fields of gender history and the study of mas-
culinity. Bringing together international scholarship from across time periods, the collection
is a major contribution to the study of masculinity over la longue durée. The breadth and cross-
period dialogue of the book reflects the outlook of the series Genders and Sexualities in History
within which it is published. Both the collection and the series seek to create new dimensions
in historiography, engendering debate between chronological specialisms, and the study of
gender, sexuality, society, politics, war, religion, and culture. As with all books published in
the series, What is Masculinity? draws upon original scholarship and meticulous research that
is innovative in these fields.
Titles include:
John H. Arnold and Sean Brady (editors)
WHAT IS MASCULINITY?
Historical Dynamics from Antiquity to the Contemporary World
Cordelia Beattie and Kirsten A. Fenton (editors)
INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER, RELIGION AND ETHNICITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Matthew Cook
QUEER DOMESTICITIES
Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London
Peter Cryle and Alison Moore (editors)
FRIGIDITY
An Intellectual History
Jennifer Evans
LIFE AMONG THE RUINS
Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin
Christopher E. Forth and Elinor Accampo (editors)
CONFRONTING MODERNITY IN FIN-DE-SIÈCLE FRANCE
Bodies, Minds and Gender
Dagmar Herzog (editor)
BRUTALITY AND DESIRE
War and Sexuality in Europe’s Twentieth Century
What is Masculinity?
Historical Dynamics from Antiquity
to the Contemporary World
Edited by
John H. Arnold
Professor of Medieval History, Department of History,
Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College,
University of London, UK
and
Sean Brady
Lecturer in Modern British History, Department of History,
Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College,
University of London, UK
Palgrave
macmillan
Editorial matter, selection and introduction © John H. Arnold and Sean Brady 2011
All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2011
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-27813-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-32597-9 ISBN 978-0-230-30725-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230307254
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Contributors x
1 Introduction 1
John H. Arnold and Sean Brady
Part I Paradigms and Nomenclature
2 The History of Masculinity: An Outdated Concept? 17
John Tosh
3 Can the Hegemon Speak? Reading Masculinity
through Anthropology 35
Diederik F. Janssen
4 The Whig Interpretation of Masculinity? Honour and
Sexuality in Late Medieval Manhood 57
Christopher Fletcher
5 Masculinity without Conflict: Noblemen in Eighth- and
Ninth- Century Francia 76
Rachel Stone
Part II Masculinity and Hegemony
6 Masculinities in Early Hellenistic Athens 97
Henrik Berg
7 Masculinity As a World Historical Category of Analysis 114
Simon Yarrow
8 Hegemonic Masculinities? Assessing Change and
Processes of Change in Elite Masculinity, 1700–1900 139
Henry French and Mark Rothery
9 Masculinity and Fatherhood in England c. 1760–1830 167
Joanne Bailey
v
vi Contents
Part III Maturing and Adulthood
10 Athenian Pederasty and the Construction of Masculinity 189
Thomas K. Hubbard
11 A n Orchard, a Love Letter and Three Bastards:
The Formation of Adult Male Identity in a
Fifteenth-C entury Family 226
Rachel E. Moss
12 ‘To Make a Man Without Reason’: Examining Manhood
and Manliness in Early Modern England 245
Jennifer Jordan
13 ‘ Boys, Semi- Men and Bearded Scholars’: Maturity and
Manliness in Early Nineteenth- Century Oxford 263
Heather Ellis
Part IV Domesticities
14 St Francis of Assisi and the Making of Settlement
Masculinity, 1883–1914 285
Lucinda Matthews- Jones
15 Homes Fit for Homos: Joe Orton, Masculinity and
the Domesticated Queer 303
Matt Cook
16 Three Faces of Fatherhood As a Masculine Category:
Tyrants, Teachers, and Workaholics As ‘Responsible
Family Men’ during Canada’s Baby Boom 323
Robert Rutherdale
Part V Modern Frontiers
17 Cow Boys, Cattle Men and Competing Masculinities
on the Texas Frontier 349
Jacqueline M. Moore
18 Valorising Samurai Masculinity through Biblical Language:
Christianity, Oscar Wilde and Natsume Soseki’s Novel Kokoro 370
Kasumi Miyazaki
19 ‘Proper Government and Discipline’: Family Religion and
Masculine Authority in Nineteenth-C entury Canada 389
Nancy Christie
Contents vii
20 Punters and Their Prostitutes: British Soldiers, Masculinity
and Maisons Tolérées in the First World War 413
Clare Makepeace
Conclusion
21 Masculinities, Histories and Memories 433
Victor Jeleniewski Seidler
Index 453
Illustrations
1 Red-figured ceramic fragment attributed to Onesimus
(c. 490 BCE) 193
2 Red-figured krater attributed to Douris (c. 470 BCE) 194
3 Red-figured psykter attributed to Smikros (c. 510 BCE) 195
4 Red-figured pelike attributed to the Aegisthus Painter
(c. 465 BCE) 196
5 Black-figured cup (c. 520 BCE). Gift of E.P. and
Fiske Warren, 1908 197
6 Red-figured kylix interior attributed to the
Brygos Painter (c. 475 BCE) 198
7 Red-figured kylix attributed to Makron (c. 480 BCE) 199
8 Red-figured pelike attributed to the Calliope Painter
(c. 430 BCE) 201
9 Black-figured amphora (c. 530 BCE) 203
10 Red-figured kylix interior attributed to
the Briseis Painter (c. 475 BCE) 204
11 R ed-figured kylix interior attributed to
the Eretria Painter (c. 430 BCE) 205
12 Red-figured pelike attributed to Hermonax (c. 465 BCE) 206
13 R ed-figured amphora attributed to the Dikaios Painter
(c. 510 BCE) 207
14 Black-figured kotyle attributed to Amasis (c. 550 BCE) 208
15 Black-figured kylix attributed to the Painter of Louvre F51
(c. 530 BCE) 208
16 Red-figured kylix attributed to Douris (c. 485 BCE) 210
17 Red-figured kylix attributed to the Pedieus Painter (c. 510 BCE) 211
18 Red-figured kylix signed by Douris (c. 485 BCE) 212
19 Roman copy of the Diadoumenos of Polyclitus
(original c. 420 BCE) 214
20 Red-figured kylix attributed to the Eretria Painter (c. 430 BCE) 216
21 Red-figured kylix attributed to the Eretria Painter (c. 430 BCE) 217
viii
Acknowledgements
This book developed out of a conference held at Birkbeck College, University
of London in May 2008. The editors would like to thank the many participants
involved with ‘What is Masculinity? How useful is it as a Historical Category?’,
without whom this collection of essays would not have been possible. The con-
ference brought together for the first time scholars working in contemporary,
modern, early modern, medieval, ancient and non-Western research fields to
question the resonance and dissonances in recent scholarship that questions
masculinities in history. It also aimed to discuss the similarities and profound
differences in contexts and approaches to questions of masculinity across time
and space in la longue durée, and involved scholars from the broad areas of his-
tory, philosophy, sociology, literary criticism, anthropology and art history. By
necessity, this required all the delegates to think and discuss far outside their
intellectual comfort zones. The editors would like to thank the delegates for
taking this risk, and for making the conference such a stimulating and resound-
ing success. This book brings together these disparate discussions, and aims to
foster future scholarship and discussion on questions of masculinity across
time-period disciplines. The authors in this collection have thanked individu-
als and sponsors in their chapters, and the editors extend thanks to them for
enabling authors’ contributions to this book. The editors would also like to
thank the Leverhulme Trust and Birkbeck College, University of London, for
their sponsorship of the conference. The collection has been awarded funding
to support the reproduction of its images by the Scouloudi Foundation in asso-
ciation with the Institute of Historical Research, UK.
ix