Masculinities

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Foundation Core	SHS202806	2

Semester and Year Offered: 3rd Semester (Monsoon Semester 2016)

Course Coordinator and Team: Dr. Shelly Pandey

Email of course coordinator: shellypandey[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: Graduation in any of the disciplines

Masculinity as a field of enquiry is important to theorise gender as a category of analysis. The discourse of masculinity as a dominant and superior gender position is produced at a number of sites and has specific consequences for ‘other’ genders especially its perceived antithesis, femininity. This course will explore various cultural, political and social contexts through which ideas of masculinity / masculinities circulate and take shape. It is not just the snap shot view of synchronic categories, which can be imagined as fixed in the contemporary, but also the process view of cateogories, evolving and changing in time, historically that needs to be there in analysis. India has seen the rise of studies on masculinities from mid 90s onwards. The course would be a review of the important studies from India, pitching it firmly within a feminist framework, which means, analysing power operating in the construction and performances of masculinities.

Course Outcomes;

On Successful completion of this course, Students will be able to

Understand Masculinity as framework of analysis.
Learn about masculinity in the historical context
Identify that how masculinity is constructed.
Understand how masculinity is associated with sexuality, violence and honor.
Demonstrate how masculine is performed through different Art forms like, cinema poetry.

Main Modules

Unit 1: Masculinity and Masculinities: Definitions and Frameworks of Analysis

Gender as a Relationship Between Men, Women and Other Genders
Masculinities and Power
Masculinities and Feminism

Unit 2: Masculinity and History: Pre-Colonial, Colonial and Post-colonial Contexts

Indian Masculinities before Colonialism
Masculinities and the Colonial Era: the Making of Indian Men
Post-colonial Masculinities: The Nation and its Men

Unit 3: Learning to be a Man

Family
Schooling
Religion
Work

Unit 4: Masculinity and Sexuality

Men, Women and Sexuality
Heterosexuality, Homosexuality and Masculinity

Unit 5: Masculinities, „Honour‟ and Violence

Losing Masculinity, Maintaining Masculinity
War and Masculinity

Unit 6: Filmic and Masculinities in India

Men as Movie Audiences
Poets and Angry Young Men

Unit 7: Masculinities, Beauty, Physicality and Fitness

Making-up the Male Body
Masculinity in Performance

Assessment Details with weights:

Assessment 1: 40%
Assessment 2: 40%
Class participation and attendance: 20%

Readings:

Alter, J. (1992). Hanuman: Shakti, Bhakti and Brahmacharya. In The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bandhopadhyay, M. (2006). „Competing Masculinities in a Prison, Men and Masculinities 9 (2): 186-203.
Bannerjee, S. (2005). „Cultural Nationalism, Masculine Hinduism and Contemporary Hindutva‟ in Make me a Man! Masculinity, Hinduism and Nationalism in India. New York: SUNY Press.
Bastick, M., Karin Grimm and Rahel Kunz (2007). Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict – Global Overview and Implication for the Security Sector. Geneva: Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces
Blackwood, E. (1998). Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing masculinity and erotic desire. Cultural Anthropology, 13(4):491-521.
Carstairs, M. (1958). The Twice Born. London: Hogarth Press.
Chopra, R. (2006). „Invisible Men: Masculinity, Sexuality and Male Domestic Labour‟, Men and Masculinities, 9 (2): 152-167.
Connell, R.W. (Oct., 1993), “The Big Picture: Masculinities in Recent World History” in Theory and Society, Vol. 22, No. 5, Special Issue: Masculinities, pp. 597-623.
Cornwall, A and Lindisfarne, N. (1994). „Dislocating Masculinity: Gender, Power and Anthropology‟. In Dislocating Masculinity. Comparative Ethnographies. Abingdon: Routledge.
De Neeve, G. (2003). „The Workplace and the Neighbourhood” Locating Masculinities in the South Indian Textile Industry‟. In Osella,C.,Chopra, R. and Osella, R. (eds.) South Asian Masculinities. Contexts of Change, Sites of Continuity. Delhi: Women Unlimited.
Deckha, N. (2007). „From Artist-as-Hero to the Creative Young Man: Bollywood and the Aestheticization of Indian Masculinity‟. In Gurbir Jolly, Zenia Wadhwani and Deborah Barretto (eds.) Once Upon a Time in Bollywood. He Global Swing in Indian Cinema. Toronto: TSAR Books.
Derne, S. (2000). „Globalization and Masculine Space in India and Fiji‟. In Bettina Van Hoven and Kathrin Horschelmann (eds.) Spaces of Masculinities. London and New York: Routledge.
Faizan Ahmed, S.M (2006). „Making Beautiful: Male Workers in Beauty Parlours‟, Men and Masculinities, 9 (2): 168-185. Forrest, D. (1994). „We‟re here, We‟re Queer and we‟re not Going Shopping: Changing Gay Male Identities in Contemporary Britain‟. In Cornwall and Lindisfarne (Ed) Dislocating Masculinity. Comparative Ethnographies. Abingdon: Routledge
Gerami, S. (2004). “Islamist Masculinity and Muslim Masculinities”. In M. Kimmel, J. Hearn and RW Connell (Eds.) Handbook of studies on men and masculinities. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Halberstam, Judith (1998), “An Introduction to Female Masculinity” in Female Masculinity, Durham, Duke University Press
Heath, Stephen (2003), “Male Feminism” in Alice Jardine & Paul Smith (eds.) Men in Feminism, London, Routledge.
Jain, K. (2004). „Muscularity and its Ramifications: Mimetic Male Bodies in Indian Mass Culture‟. In Sanjay Srivastava (ed.) Sexual Sites, Seminal Attitudes. Sexualities, Masculinities and Culture in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage.
Kandiyoti, D. (1994). „The Paradoxes of Masculinity: Some Thoughts on Segregated Societies‟, in Cornwall and Lindisfarne (Ed). Dislocating Masculinity. Comparative Ethnographies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Kimmel, Michael S. (September 1987), “Men's Responses to Feminism at the Turn of the Century” in Gender and Society, Vol.1, No.3, pp. 261-283.
Krishnan, H. (2009). „From Gynemimesis to Hypermasculinity‟. In Jennifer Fisher Anthony Shay (eds.) When Men Dance. Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lu, Sheldon, H. (2001). „Soap Opera: The Transnational Politics of Visuality, Sexuality, and Masculinity‟. In China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Messner, M. (2000). „Men and Masculinities‟. In Politics of Masculinities. Lanham: AltaMira Press.
O‟Hanlon, R. (1997). “Issues of Masculinity in North India History.” Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 4: 1-19.
Osella, C and Osella, F. (2006). „Introduction: Masculinities in South Asia‟. In Men and Masculinities in South India. London: Anthem Press. Osella, C. And Osella, F. (2003). Young Malayalee Men and their Movie Heroes‟. In Osella, C., Chopra, R. and Osella, F. (Eds.) South Asian Masculinities. Contexts of Change, Sites of Continuity. Delhi: Women Unlimited.
Parker, L. (1997). “Engendering School children in Bali.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 3 (3): 497-516.
Rosselli, J. (1980). “The Self-image of effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal.” Past and Present 86: 121-148.
Schmidt, J. (2001). „ Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism. In Samoa‟, Intersections: Gender, History, Culture in the Asian Context( http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html). Issues 6.
Sen, P. (2005). “Crimes of Honour, Value and Meaning”. In Lynn Welchman and Sarah Hossain, (eds.) ‘Honour’. Crimes, paradigms, and violence against women. London: Zed Books.
Sharma (1993). „Blood, Sweat and Tears: Amitabh Bachchan, Urban Demi-God‟. In P. Kirkham and J. Thumin (eds.) You Tarzan: Masculinities, Movies and Men. New York: St. Martin‟s Press.
Srivastava, S. (1996). „The Garden of Rational Delights: The Nation as Experiment, Science, as Masculinity‟. Social Analysis, No. 39, April.
Walle, T. (2003). „Virginity vs. Decency” Continuity and Change in Pakistani Men‟s Perception of Sexuality and Women‟. In C. Osella, R. Chopra and F. Osella (eds.) South Asian Masculinities. Contexts of Change, Sites of Continuity. Delhi: Women Unlimited.