ABSTRACT
The central question asked in this chapter is: what does or can “affect” do to masculinity? The notion that affect opens up gendered potentialities has important implications for critical studies of men and masculinity. Ineffable moments of visceral potentiality can have the effect of revisioning masculinity away from normativity or hegemony, of putting it into motion, or of queering it. The experience of affect or affective representation can be constituted by nondiscursive moments that transform the stasis and boundedness of normative masculinity, opening it up to new configurations. But also, those revisionary moments may be temporary, contained, and evoked only to be effaced, serving ultimately to reinforce the normativity or hegemony of masculinity in a more pernicious way than without them. Extending affect studies, this chapter offers a series of analytic models, with examples, that scholars can use and adapt in their own work on masculinity and affect.
