Rivalrous Masculinities

Rivalrous Masculinities
Author: Ann Marie Rasmussen
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0268105596

Bringing together the work of both leading and emerging scholars in the field of medieval gender studies, the essays in Rivalrous Masculinities advance our understanding of medieval masculinity as a pluralized category and as an intersectional category of gender. The essays in this volume are distinguished by a conceptual focus that goes beyo nd heteronormativity and by their attention to constructions of medieval masculinity in the context of femininity, class, religion, and place. Some widen the field of medieval gender studies inquiry to include explorations of medieval friendship as a framework or culture of arousal and deep emotionality that produced multiple, complex ways of living intensely with respect to gender and sexuality, without reducing all forms of intimacy to implicit sexuality. Some examine intersections of identity, explicating change and difference in conventional modes of gender with regards to regional culture, religion, race, or class. In order to ground this intersectional and interdisciplinary approach with the appropriate disciplinary expertise, the essays in this volume represent a broad cross-section of disciplines: art history, religious studies, history, and French, Italian, German, Yiddish, Middle English, and Old English literature. Together, they open up new intellectual vistas for future research in the field of medieval gender studies. Contributors include: Ann Marie Rasmussen, Clare A. Lees, Gillian R. Overing, J. Christian Straubhaar-Jones, Astrid Lembke, Darrin Cox, F. Regina Psaki, Corinne Wieben, Ruth Mazo Karras, Diane Wolfthal, Karma Lochrie, and Andreas Krass.

Masculinities in Theory

Masculinities in Theory
Author: Todd W. Reeser
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2023-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 111988408X

The new edition of the essential textbook on masculinity and representations of masculinity in the context of gender and cultural studies Popular dialogues on gender and sexuality have evolved rapidly in recent decades, and students are finding new and exciting opportunities to examine gender and sexuality from critical perspectives. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction, Second Edition synthesizes existing approaches to the study of masculinity and presents new theoretical models that enable a deeper and more nuanced investigation of the diverse forms of masculine identity. In this text, students are invited to investigate the constructs of masculinity they encounter in their own lives, offering a way for students to parse the varied and conflicting views on masculinity they may encounter in their communities, in the media, and in history. Now in its second edition, Masculinities in Theory has been fully updated to bring this overview of masculinity studies up to date with modern views and contemporary contexts. The text shines a light on new cases for examination drawn from popular culture and current events, including the masculinities of Trump and Putin, Indigenous masculinities, and the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement on concepts of masculinity. An entirely new chapter on trans masculinities is complemented by a thoroughly revised chapter on the experience of affective masculinities. This valuable work: Covers key theories applicable to gender studies in interdisciplinary humanities and social science programs Demonstrates the complex nature of masculinity from cultural and theoretical perspectives Examines how the work of Butler, Derrida, Foucault, and other theorists can be used to interpret and analyze masculinity Discusses feminist, queer, transgender, post-colonial, and ethnic studies in relation to masculinity Offering a clear, concise, and comprehensive introduction to the field, Masculinities in Theory, Second Edition is the ideal textbook for courses on masculinity, as well as general courses in gender studies, sexuality studies, and cultural studies. It is also an excellent resource for interdisciplinary courses in literature, art history, film, communications, linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, and philosophy programs.

Rivalrous Masculinities

Rivalrous Masculinities
Author: Ann Marie Rasmussen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780268105570

This book represents an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach to medieval masculinity, discussing gender studies, femininity, class, religion, and location.

Premodern Masculinities in Transition

Premodern Masculinities in Transition
Author: Konrad Eisenbichler
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2024-03-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1837651701

Sheds new light on how masculinity was understood, lived, performed and viewed during a period of huge change. Premodern masculinity was multivalent and dynamic, a series of intersecting, conflicting, and mutating identities that nevertheless were distinct and recognizable to people and their societies. The articles collected here examine a variety of means by which masculinity was constructed, deconstructed, and transformed across time, geographies, and cultures. Articles range across the twelfth to seventeenth century, from western Europe to the Volga-Ural region, from the Christian west to the Muslim east, from Ottomans to Mongols and Persians, from Baudri of Bourgueil to Blaise de Monluc; while topics include the chivalric hero, the effeminate man, beards, and spurs, represented variously in literature, historical documents, and art. Finally, in that period of great transformation that is the sixteenth century, they show how masculinity moved away from the traditional and recognizable to become something different and distinct from its premodern expressions.

Masculinities in Old Norse Literature

Masculinities in Old Norse Literature
Author: Gareth Lloyd Evans
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2020-07-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843845628

Compared to other areas of medieval literature, the question of masculinity in Old Norse-Icelandic literature has been understudied. This is a neglect which this volume aims to rectify. The essays collected here introduce and analyse a spectrum of masculinities, from the sagas of Icelanders, contemporary sagas, kings' sagas, legendary sagas, chivalric sagas, bishops' sagas, and eddic and skaldic verse, producing a broad and multifaceted understanding of what it means to be masculine in Old Norse-Icelandic texts. A critical introduction places the essays in their scholarly context, providing the reader with a concise orientation in gender studies and the study of masculinities in Old Norse-Icelandic literature. This book's investigation of how masculinities are constructed and challenged within a unique literature is all the more vital in the current climate, in which Old Norse sources are weaponised to support far-right agendas and racist ideologies are intertwined with images of vikings as hypermasculine. This volume counters these troubling narratives of masculinity through explorations of Old Norse literature that demonstrate how masculinity is formed, how it is linked to violence and vulnerability, how it governs men's relationships, and how toxic models of masculinity may be challenged.

Medieval Masculinities

Medieval Masculinities
Author: Clare A. Lees
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1994
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816624263

Since the mid-1970s men's studies, and gender studies has earned its place in scholarship. What's often missing from such studies, however, is the insight that the concept of gender in general, and that of masculinity in particular, can be understood only in relation to individual societies, examined at specific historical and cultural moments. An application of this insight, "Medieval Masculinities" is the first full-length collection to explore the issues of men's studies and contemporary theories of gender within the context of the Middle Ages. Interdisciplinary and multicultural, the essays range from matrimony in medieval Italy to bachelorhood in "Renaissance Venice", from friars and saints to the male animal in the fables of Marie de France, from manhood in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", "Beowulf" and the "Roman d'Eneas" to men as "other", whether Muslim or Jew, in medieval Castilian Epic and Ballad. The authors are especially concerned with cultural manifestations of masculinity that transcend this particular historical period - idealized gender roles, political and economic factors in structuring social institutions, and the impact of masculinist ideology in fostering and maintaining power. Together, these essays constitute an important reassessment of traditional assumptions within medieval studies, as well as a major contribution to the evolving study of gender.

Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England

Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England
Author: Rebecca Hardie
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2023-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501512250

Æthelflæd (c. 870–918), political leader, military strategist, and administrator of law, is one of the most important ruling women in English history. Despite her multifaceted roles and family legacy, however, her reign and relationship with other women in tenth-century England have never been the subject of a book-length study. This interdisciplinary collection of essays redresses a notable hiatus in scholarship of early medieval England. Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England argues for a reassessment of women’s political, military, literary, and domestic agency. It invites deeper reflection on the female kinships, networks, and communities that give meaning to Æthelflæd’s life, and through this shows how medieval history can invite new engagements with the past.

Gender Bonds, Gender Binds

Gender Bonds, Gender Binds
Author: Sara S. Poor
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2021-05-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110729253

While Gender Studies has made its mark on literary studies, much scholarship on the German Middle Ages is largely inaccessible to the Anglo-American audience. With gender at its core as a category of analysis, "Gender Bonds, Gender Binds"uniquely opens up medieval German material to English speakers. Recognizing the impact of Ann Marie Rasmussen’s Mothers and Daughters in Medieval German Literature, this transatlantic volume expands on questions introduced in her 1997 book and subsequent work. More than a mere tribute, the collection moves the debates forward in new directions: it examines how gender bonds together people, practices, texts, and interpretive traditions, while constraining and delimiting these things socially, ideologically, culturally, or historically. As the contributions demonstrate, a close, materially focused analysis produces complex results, not easily reduced to a platitude. The essays steer a firm course through the terrain of gender bonds and binds, many of which remain challenging in the present. Herein lies the broader reach of this volume, for understanding the longevity of patriarchy and its effects on human relations demonstrates how crucial the study of the past can be for us as a society today.

Wisdom's Journey

Wisdom's Journey
Author: Steven Rozenski
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2022-07-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268202753

Steven Rozenski reopens old discussions and addresses new ones concerning late medieval devotional texts, particularly those showing continental and German influences. For many, Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German has come to define the spirit of the Protestant Reformation. But there existed a host of devotional and mystical writings translated into the vernacular that had more profound impacts upon lay religious practices and experiences well into the seventeenth century. Steven Rozenski explores this devotional and mystical literature in his focused study of English translations and adaptations of the works of Henry Suso, Catherine of Siena, and Thomas à Kempis, and the common devotional culture manifested in the work of Richard Rolle. In Wisdom’s Journey, Rozenski examines the forms and strategies of late medieval translation, of early modern engagement with Continental medieval devotion, and of the latter’s literary afterlives in English-speaking communities. Suso’s Rhineland mysticism, the book shows, found initial widespread influence, translation, and adaptation followed by a gradual decline; Catherine of Siena’s Italian spirituality saw continued use and retranslation in post-Reformation recusant communities paralleled by vehement denunciation by English Protestants; and Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ attained a remarkably consistent expansion of popularity, translation, and acceptance among both Catholic and Protestant readers well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Wisdom’s Journey traces this path as it reshapes our understanding of English devotional and mystical literature from the 1400s to the 1600s, illuminating its wider European context before and after the Reformations of the sixteenth century. Written primarily for scholars in medieval mysticism, Reformation studies, and translation studies, the book will also appeal to readers interested in medieval studies and English literature more broadly.

Medieval Badges

Medieval Badges
Author: Ann Marie Rasmussen
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2021-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 081229968X

Mass-produced of tin-lead alloys and cheap to make and purchase, medieval badges were brooch-like objects displaying familiar images. Circulating widely throughout Europe in the High and late Middle Ages, badges were usually small, around four-by-four centimeters, though examples as tiny as two centimeters and a few as large as ten centimeters have been found. About 75 percent of surviving badges are closely associated with specific charismatic or holy sites, and when sewn or pinned onto clothing or a hat, they would have marked their wearers as having successfully completed a pilgrimage. Many others, however, were artifacts of secular life; some were political devices—a swan, a stag, a rose—that would have denoted membership in a civic organization or an elite family, and others—a garland, a pair of clasped hands, a crowned heart—that would have been tokens of love or friendship. A good number are enigmatic and even obscene. The popularity of badges seems to have grown steadily from the last decades of the twelfth century before waning at the very end of the fifteenth century. Some 20,000 badges survive today, though historians estimate that as many as two million were produced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries alone. Archaeologists and hobbyists alike continue to make new finds, often along muddy riverbanks in northern Europe. Interdisciplinary in approach, and sumptuously illustrated with more than 115 color and black-and-white images, Medieval Badges introduces badges in all their variety and uses. Ann Marie Rasmussen considers all medieval badges, whether they originated in religious or secular contexts, and highlights the different ways badges could confer meaning and identity on their wearers. Drawing on evidence from England, France, the Low Countries, Germany, and Scandinavia, this book provides information about the manufacture, preservation, and scholarly study of these artifacts. From chapters exploring badges and pilgrimage, to the complexities of the political use of badges, to the ways the visual meaning-making strategies of badges were especially well-suited to the unique features of medieval cities, this book offers an expansive introduction of these medieval objects for a wide readership.