ABSTRACT

This volume showcases cutting-edge research in the linguistic and discursive study of masculinities, comprising the first significant edited collection on language and masculinities since Johnson and Meinhof’s 1997 volume. Overall, the chapters are linked together by a critical analytical perspective that seeks to understand the relationships between discourse, masculinities, and power. Whereas some of the chapters offer detailed, linguistically informed critiques of the ways in which old and new expressions of masculinities are complicit in the reproduction of men’s hegemonic positions of power, others provide a more complex picture, one in which collusion and subversion go hand in hand. Contributions argue for the need for research on language and masculinities to expand its remit so as to engage with "gay masculinities," and unsettle gendered categories in order to consider the ways in which women, transgender, and intersex individuals also perform a variety of masculinities. Finally, unlike Johnson and Meinhof’s 1997 collection, this volume not only offers a wider—and perhaps "queerer" perspective—on the study of language and masculinities, but also covers a broader geographical and socio-cultural spectrum, including work on Brazil, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

Language and Masculinities … 20 Years Later

chapter |23 pages

Emceeing Toughness, Toughing up the Emcee

Language and Masculine Ideology in Freestyle Rap Performances

chapter |17 pages

Construing the New Oppressed

Masculinity in Crisis and the Backlash against Feminism

chapter |23 pages

‘The Ideal Gay Man'

Narrating Masculinity and National Identity in Israel

chapter |18 pages

No Ordinary Boy

Language, Masculinities, and Queer Pornography

chapter |23 pages

Masculinity in Lesbian Discourse

The Case of Butch and Femme

chapter |23 pages

Transmasculinity and the Voice

Gender Assignment, Identity, and Presentation

chapter |23 pages

Reclaiming Masculinity in an Account of Lived Intersex Experience

Language, Desire, and Embodied Knowledge