Requirements:

Note: All papers must be in 12 point Courier / Courier New, double-spaced, numbered pages.

• 2 Brief Seminar papers (500 words—no longer) (10% / 10%) —Sign up for date

Brief, but focused and forceful, assessments of the reading of the day and how readings connect to the seminar themes and/or your own research interest. May also be on relevant research that you are using.
1) Offer a broad overview of the readings and how they bear upon the masculinity theme.
2) Then, focus on a particular vein that interests you and open that up for the class, suggesting topics and/or questions for discussion in this class.
—Put a hard copy of your paper in my mailbox by noon the day before the class your paper is due, and e-mail me a copy pasted into the e-mail.
3) Make a photocopy for each member of the class.
—Each paper must have a complete and accurate bibliography.
—Be prepared to present the paper in class. Time permitting, most papers will be presented formally.Well-written and succinct, these papers are the product of serious, analytical consideration of the works at hand.

• Long Paper Proposal (500-750 words)—Due Oct. 23
This is a formal, carefully written and developed, proposal that succinctly sets out your "project," anticipating—imagining yourself into—the final paper that you will write. Include:
• A possible title
• A working thesis. Include a statement on why your thesis is relevant or interesting.
• The primary texts that you will be working with—literary or cultural—and your anticipated focus.
• The secondary texts you expect to use and your anticipated use.
• A working bibliography

• Annotated bibliography (10%) —Due Nov. 13
How to:
1) Read your secondary sources—articles in journals or books by literary critics, feminist critics, African American studies critics, sociologists, psychologists, and so on—thoroughly, underlining and annotating;
2) In a paragraph, summarize the author's thesis and how he or she argues the thesis;
3) In a sentence or two, explain how the work is or may be relevant to the paper that you will write.
• How an annotated entry must look.

• Rough draft (10%)—Due. Nov. 18

This should set out a clear thesis and be as complete as possible. For incomplete drafts, append a detailed description of how you plan to finish the draft and make an appointment to turn in the incomplete draft in person during an office hour.

•Formal Precis (250 words) of long paper— Due Dec. 2

• Senior Seminar Paper, Precis & Research Portfolio (5,000-6,250 words) (60%)—Due Dec. 5

• Use books and scholarly (or otherwise appropriate and influential) essays that you find in your research to support and develop your thesis. For literary papers, you must use the M.L.A. Bibliography in your research. For other papers focusing on, say, media representation and reception of masculinity, use the appropriate scholarly and media research databases. The number of scholarly articles and books that you end up using in the paper will be determined by how many relevant sources you find and by your approach.
• Use M.L.A. style for documenting sources
• Document all sources: if you get an idea, a paraphrase, or a quote from a source, credit and document it. Use of undocumented sources is plagiarism. Plagiarism results in failure of the course.
Heading:
• Name
• course
• date
• Precis: Place just above title.
• Title: Assert a descriptive, effective title.

 

—Option 1 : The Literary or Nonfiction-Work Analysis

An original, thoroughly researched and well-written essay exploring connections between scholarly discourse on masculinity and masculinity as represented in literary texts and/or in influential nonfiction work in books and media. This paper will be either a traditional close reading and application of a theoretical approach to works of literature or a traditional analysis of works of nonfiction. (The paper could also be a hybrid of these two approaches, as Kimmel's work is.)

—Option 2 : The Nonfiction Analysis

This work may be a reported magazine article (e.g., on the Sunday New York Times Magazine model), if you have taken English 360, English 361, or by permission of the instructor. This paper would be a work of long-term, immersion reporting that effectively uses either a magazine or dramatic narrative structure. Include as an appendix, a 500-word discussion of how you reported your story: be complete. Include in the research portfolio typed up interviews, interviews that you write up while they are fresh in your mind. To apply for this option, turn in a 500-word story proposal by the end of September. The proposal must contain your research and typed initial interviews with key subjects.

IN BOTH CASES, keep a research portfolio as you do your work. This means keeping all photocopies of, or your own notes from, articles that you are working with, excluding texts used in class or on reserve. Include the rough draft and other drafts in which you have made substantive changes.

---

 

Assignment List

 

 

8/26 — Masculinity as an Unstable Social Construction

• Manhood in America, Kimmel—"Preface" and "Introduction"

Further reading:

• Kilmartin on "Frameworks for Understanding Men" in The Masculine Self (in library)

8/28
• Kimmel, Chapters 1 and 2
• Interview with Michael Kimmel on new book, Guyland.

 

9/2 — Obeying the Cultural Father

• Hamlet

• Changing Fictions of Masculinity, introduction & chapt.3 (R)

9/4
• "The Things They Carried," O'Brien (Vintage)
• "Introduction" in From Chilvalry to Terrorism:War & the Changing Nature of Masculinity, Leo Braudy (R)

Further reading:
• Braudy, Chapters 1-4

 

9/9 — Self-destructive Masculinity

• Jarhead, Anthony Swofford (read into the book)

9/11
• Jarhead, (finish the book)
• "Second Thoughts on Gays in the Military," Gen. John Shalikashvili (Ret.)

Further reading:
• Braudy, Chapts. 5-8 (29-55)

9/16

• Changing Fictions, chapt. 1 (on Beowulf) (R)

• "All the Way in Flagstaff" (Vintage)

Further reading:
• Beowulf

9/18
• "Those Winter Sundays," Robert Hayden (Rag & Bone 141)

• "Murderers" (Vintage)

• "from Homeric Hymn to Ares" (Rag & Bone 83)

• "The War Prayer," Mark Twain (Rag & Bone 215)

 

9/23 — Black Masculinity

• Etheridge Knight

—"The Idea of Ancestry" (44)

—"The Bones of My Father" (125)

— "On the Yard" (210)

—"Feeling Fucked Up" (344)

—"Welcome Back, Mr. Knight: Love of My Life" (452)
• Re/constructing Black masculinity in prison. M. Nandi.

Further viewing:
• "I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America (DVD, 1998) (R)
• "Malcolm X" (VHS, 1992; DVD, 2000)

•Further reading:
• Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity & Ideality in African-American Men's Literature and Culture, Maurice Wallace (scholarly essays/book chapters)
• Makes Me Wanna Holler, Nathan McCall (autobiography about growing up in Hampton, Va.)
• Reaching Up for Manhood, Geoffrey Canada (Boys are socialized to ignore pain and to risk-taking behaviors and to practices of "consuming" masculinity)

Further viewing:

• "Merchants of Cool," a PBS Frontline documentary. 1 hour: view the entire program online

9/25
• Amiri Baraka

—"A Poem Some People will Have to Understand" (211)

• Gwendolyn Brooks

—"We Real Cool" (204)

• Claude McKay

—"The White City" (309)

• Langston Hughes

—"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (101)

—"Necessity" (452)

—"Harlem" (310)

• "No More Auction Block," Spiritual (107) (Rag & Bone)

The following essays are hyperlinked to VIVA. Print out and read for class:

• In search of black men's masculinities, Marlon Ross, Feminist Studies (JSTOR) Vol. 24, No. 3, Autum 1998.

Further reading:
•He Is a "Bad Mother*S%@!#": Shaft and Contemporary Black Masculinity, Matthew Henry; African American Review, Vol. 38, 2004, Spring.

 

9/30 — Masculinity and (Wo)men's Bodies

• The Hearts of Men, Ehrenreich

Further reading:
• Kimmel, Chapt. 6, "Muscles, Money, & the M-F Test"
• "Men Not Working, And Not Wanting Just Any Job," Louis Uchitelle & David Leonhardt
• "Men at Work? Not These Men," NYTimes

10/2

• "Devil's Island," Dobyns (R)

• "So Much Water, So Close to Home" (Carver)

• "After Making Love, We Hear Footsteps," Galway Kinnell (Rag & Bone 59)

• "Men and Birth: The Unexplainable," Haki R. Madhubuti (Rag & Bone 46)

• "Dance Russe," William Carlos Williams (Rag & Bone 6)

Further reading:

• from The Male Body, Bordo (R)

• from Houdini, Tarzan & the Perfect Man, Kasson (R)

• "'Gosh, Boy George, You Must Be Awfully Secure in your Masculinity,'" Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, in Constructing Masculinity, eds. Berger, Wallis, Watson (R)

 

10/7
• research for paper proposal

Furthur reading and study, looking at masculinity in the media:
Media Representations of Men

• "Masculinity as Fact: A Review of Empirical Mass Communication Research on Masculinity," Fred Fejes (reserve)

• "Masculinity as Signs: Poststructuralist Feminist Approaches to the Study of Gender," Diana Saco (reserve)

• "Beer Commercials: A Manual of Masculinity," Lance Strate (reserve)

 

10/9
• research for paper proposal

Furthur reading and study, looking at masculinity in the media:
• Kimmel, Chapt. 5, "A Room of His Own: Socializing the New Man"
• "When Dad's Resume Lists Carpool," NYTimes, Lisa Belkin
• "Is There Anything Good About Men?" NYTimes, John Tierney

Further reading:
• "When Mom and Dad Share It All," NYTimes Magazine, Lisa Belkin
• "An Ideal Husband," NYTimes, Maureen Dowd

• "Commute to Nowhere," New York Times Magazine, Jonathan Mahler

• "Double Lives on the Down Low" New York Times Magazine, Benoit Denizet-Lewis

• "Coming to Terms with the Men on the Corner," NYTimes, Fernanda Santos
• "The Winter Father," Andre Dubus

 

10/14—On The Brink
• "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," Carver
• "I Could See the Smallest Things," Carver
• roundtable: proposal previews

Further reading:
• The Symposium, Plato
• "Gazebo," Carver
• "Mr. Coffee & Mr. Fixit," Carver
• "Why Don't You Dance," Carver
• "Killings," Andre Dubus

10/16—Hope
• "Cathedral," Carver (in Vintage)
• "Viewfinder," Carver
• "Earnest Money," Michael Dorris
• roundtable: proposal previews

Further reading:
• "Oui," Michael Dorris in Working Men
• Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier

Further viewing:
• "Fight Club"

 

 

10/21

• Fall break

10/23
• Long Paper Proposal due

 

 

10/28

• research & wrting...and conferences

10/30
• research & wrting...and conferences

11/4
• research & wrting...and conferences

11/6
• research & writing...and conferences

11/11
• research & writing...and conferences

11/13
• Class meets: Annotated bibliography due

11/18

• Class meets: Rough draft due

11/20

• conferences—sign up

11/25
• conferences—sign up

11/27
• Thanksgiving break

12/2
• Formal precis presentation in class—bring copies for each member of class

12/4
• Formal precis presentation in class—bring copies for each member of class

12/5
• final paper, precis, bibliography and research notebook due at 5 p.m. in my office

General Course Policies

OFFICE HOURS
My door is always open, and I am happy to see you during my office hours, as well as other times that I'm in my office—drop by or call or e-mail to see if I'm in. You are welcome anytime to come by and talk about your class work in general, or about a specific reading or essay draft on which you are working.

Learning Disabilities
Any student who believes that she or he is disabled should make an appointment to see me to discuss her or his needs. To receive an accommodation, a student’s disability must be on record in the Office of Career & Counseling Services at 594-7047.