Sex, Paranoia And Modern Masculinity (Suny Series in Psychoanatysis and Culture) [Hardcover]

Kenneth Paradis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0791469336 | ISBN-13: 978-0791469330 | Edition: 1

How modern conceptions of paranoia became associated with excessive or unregulated masculinity.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Sex, Paranoia, and Modern Masculinity explores how twentieth-century conceptions of paranoia became associated with the excessive or unregulated exercise of masculine intellectual tendencies. Through an extended analysis of Freudian metapsychology, Kenneth Paradis illustrates how paranoid ideation has been especially connected to the figure of the male body under threat of genital mutilation or emasculation. In this context, he also considers how both midcentury detective fiction (especially the work of Raymond Chandler) and contemporaneous autobiographies of male-to-female transsexuals negotiate the terms of this gendered understanding of psychopathology, thus articulating their own notions of moral value, individual autonomy, and effective agency.

"I like very much how this book explores the deeper roots of paranoia and how those deeper roots are shown to be complicit in the building of narratives in the modern age--narratives with not only psychological and sexual implications but gendered implications as well. Paradis's insightful exploration of sexuality and paranoia says much about our own condition in the present moment." -- Todd F. Davis, author of Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade; or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism

"This book demonstrates the interrelatedness of several genres and styles of paranoid discourse: detective fiction, autobiography, memoir, case study, film, and novel. The author weaves these sometimes disparate genres into a multifaceted set of readings that offer an intelligent analysis of paranoid narratives." -- Mark S. Roberts, coeditor of High Culture: Reflections on Addiction and Modernity

About the Author

Kenneth Paradis is Assistant Professor of English and Contemporary Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr; 1 edition (November 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791469336
• ISBN-13: 978-0791469330
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,571,692 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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