Male Matters: Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Male Body on the Line [Hardcover]

Calvin Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996

The contemporary straight white male finds himself, if he finds himself at all, in dilemmas too numerous to mention. Torn between the just charges of feminism, made keenly aware of his heterosexism and his privilege, feeling psycho-analyzed and pilloried and scrutinized to a fare-thee-well, how should he handle his anxiety? According to Calvin Thomas, maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he should embrace his abjection - his cast-off, humiliated, and discounted status - as a way of renegotiating his identity and of interrupting the historical displacement of that status onto the feminine, or the marginalized other. This embrace of abjection, says Thomas, begins as a confrontation with the issue of the male body. The straight man, unfamiliar and unfriendly and uncomfortable with his body - the excretory, urinary, and seminal aspects of his body in particular - will find that Thomas's Male Matters explores the complicated relationships between masculinity and the male body, revealing the act and production of writing as a bodily, material process that transgresses the boundaries of gender. Male Matters is not only theory but theory out of and as literature and philosophy. This wise and quirky, sophisticated and coarse, serious and hilarious look at male identity and creativity and dislocation at the end of the twentieth century will not assuage male anxiety and may, in fact, produce more. But therein lies the way of the productive male, yielding to (rather than attempting to master) language as a bodily function.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 245 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; 1St Edition edition (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252022025
• ISBN-13: 978-0252022029
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thomas Cuts Open the Masculine Constitution, October 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Male Matters: Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Male Body on the Line (Hardcover)

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.