Read more
Given the substantial impact of feminism on children's literature and culture during the last quarter century, it comes as no surprise that gender studies have focused predominantly on issues of female representation. The question of how the same patriarchal ideology structured representations of male bodies and behaviors was until very recently a marginal discussion. Now that masculinity has emerges as an overt theme in children's literature and film, critical consideration of the subject is timely, if not long overdue
Ways of Being Male addresses this new concern in an unprecedented collection of essays examining how contemporary debates about masculinity are reflected in fiction and film for young adults. An outstanding team of scholars elucidates the ways in which different versions of male identity are constructed and presented to young audiences. The contributors, drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, employ international discourses in literary criticism, feminism, social sciences, film theory, psychoanalytic criticism, and queer theory in their wide-ranging exploration of male representation. With its illuminating array of perspectives, this pioneering survey brings a long neglected subject into sharp focus.
List of contents
Series Editor’s Foreword. Preface. 1. Making Boys Appear: The Masculinity of Children's Fiction, Perry Nodelman. 2. Picturing the Male: Representations of Masculinity in Picture Books, Kerry Mallan. 3. "A Page Just Waiting to be Written on": Masculinity Schemata and the Dynamics of Subjective Agency in Junior Fiction, John Stephens. 4. Redeeming Masculinity at the End of the Second Millennium: Narrative Reconfigurations of Masculinity in Children's Fiction, Beverley Pennell. 5. Reframing Masculinity: Female-to-Male Cross-dressing, Victoria Flanagan. 6. Come Lads and Ladettes: Gendering Bodies and Gendering Behaviors, Kimberley Reynolds. 7. Masculinity as Social Semiotic: Identity Politics and Gender in Disney Animated Films, Robyn McCallum. 8. Making the Invisible Visible: Stereotypes of Masculinity in Canonized High School Literature, Ingrid Johnston and Jyoti Mangat. 9. Challenging the Phallic Fantasy in Young Adult Fiction, Kerry Mallan. 10. Queering Hereotopic Spaces: Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy and Peter Wells' Boy Overboard, Beverley Pennell and John Stephens. 11. Trigger Pals: A Case History, Roderick McGillis. 12. Masks and Masculinity in James Barrie's Peter Pan, Monique Chassagnol. 13. Representing Masculinities in Norwegian and Australian Young Adult Fiction: A Comparative Study, Rolf Romoren and John Stephens. Bibliography. Index.
About the author
John Stephens is Professor in English at Macquarie University, Australia
Summary
This book examines how contemporary debates about masculinity are reflected and taken up in fiction and film for young audiences.
