GNDS 360: Masculinities Cross Cultural Perspectives W 2022
Assignment: Research Paper
Due Date: between March 26th, 2022- April 8th, submitted through Turnitin
Weight: 30%
Length: 10-12 pages (including footnotes/endnotes and works cited), double-spaced.
Formatting: MLA OR APA.
Use of Secondary sources: Yes.
Write a 10-12 pages research paper of a topic that both interests you and is related to the approaches to the study and theorizing of men and masculinity that we have learned about throughout the course. The main goal of this assignment is to apply those tools and further our engagement with the course materials by exploring your own ideas about a topic from the course that you are intrigued or passionate about and entering it into a conversation with others who have studied, theorized, and thought about your topic. Think of this assignment as an opportunity to have a critical conversation and to apply the recommended approaches/new directions that we have learned about from our Masculinities Reader and Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies.
You might choose to write a research paper based on empirical or ethnographic studies that you have conducted in your area of study in conversation with both the theory and another media or texts, including those assigned to the course and those that you have found on your own (i.e., novel, film, art, music, or any other media). You might want to build from ideas that you explored in your discussion posts or/and scholarly review and find out what else has been said about the topic and which areas you want to expand on or contribute towards. You might also consider exploring how the field of masculinity studies intersects with studies of and approaches to race, class, sexuality, identity, and/or gender relations.
You can find a list of topics to choose from in the section below. You can also choose to write about one of the topics/areas that are listed on our anthologies (I.e., Men, Masculinity and sporting culture, or militarism, or food and diet, or sex and sexuality, education, colonial masculinities, etc.). Your essay must engage with not only your primary texts (one or two examples from media, culture, literature, and/or aesthetics), but also with critical scholarship investigating the connection between your topic of choice and studies of men and masculinity. Getting started is a challenge so do not hesitate to contact me or your TA to go over your ideas and prospective list of both primary and secondary sources.
Topics:
In his introduction, Masculinities in Theory (2010), Todd W. Reeser highlights how images that are so prevalent they are “taken as universal, and, on a cultural level, come to appear as mythological” (23). Culture can, thus, easily turn images into myths and, inadvertently, establish and spread specific narratives of masculinity that are widespread and perceived as universal (i.e., the cowboy, the hamburger, male superheroes, etc.) Write an essay exploring one or two cultural icons, images/myths that represent an ideal or a narrative of masculinity. Identify the narrative and review its historical connections. What type of narrative is it (i.e., masculinity in crisis)? Is there more than one? How are these being spread and reasserted? How are they being challenged (if at all)?
Cultural images can be related to men and masculinity, as Todd W. Reeser points out in his overview of how ideology can be conceived and disseminated through different social forms such as images, discourses, and/or practices (21). The hamburger, for example, although a cultural image that is not specifically about men, has connections to masculinity. In Reeser’s words:
[c]ultural images not directly about men can also be related to masculinity. The hamburger has become and American myth, an essential aspect of American identity, but part of its mythological statures derives from beef’s link to masculinity (we talk about “beefy” men for instance). So, the cultural myth of the hamburger is buttressed by masculinity and affirms, in turn, the recurring connection between meat and masculinity. (“Theorizing Masculinity” 23)
Write an essay exploring the relationship between meat and masculinity. You might choose to focus on the specific relationship between the hamburger-beef-identity, meat/beef, or choose other items of food, dietary practices that have a similar relationship. Make sure that your research engages with not only examples in media, culture, literature, and/or aesthetics, but also with critical scholarship investigating the connection between food or diet and masculinity.
Write an essay exploring the depiction of father/son relationships in two of the following: Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, King’s Truth and Bright Water, and the film Boyz in the Hood. You might consider exploring how language, and/or storytelling can both challenge and transform normative narratives of masculinity. What is the relationship between language, storytelling, and identity? How can it aid in challenging normative narratives of men and masculinity? How can it transform individual relationships with themselves, their families, and/or communities? How do these works capture the possibility of breaking away from the dichotomies that have informed ideals about men, boyhood, youth, and fatherhood?
The following checklist can be used as a guideline for your use of secondary sources:
Sources are authoritative, current, and varied: Articles are from peer-review or/and editorial-review journals. Web sites are attributed to organizations or individuals with expertise on the topic being discussed.
At least five (5) different sources are included.
Special-interest web resources are acknowledged as such in the text of the document. Biases are explained.
Popular literature is included only when appropriate and is acknowledged as such in the text.
these are the instructions for the paper
