ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequents chapter of this book. The book brings various shadows emotions, fantasies, other human beings, society, and history into relief. It is an attempt at understanding a few, crucial, psychosocial themes relating to postcolonial masculinities. Landscapes of Masculinities, focuses on elaborating a psychosocial and postcolonial theory of subjectivity. Silences, Spectres and Shards elucidate loss, grief and melancholia to point towards more ethical socio-political interactions. The autobiographies discussed include John Lanchester's Family Romance, a memoir written after his mother's death. The challenge also exists for academics, and the gauntlet was thrown down by Edward Said in his influential book Orientalism. Orientalism changed the landscape of much theoretical work, as Said forced academics to think about and face up to their political allegiances and how those loyalties informed their analysis despite the appearance of objectivity.