Masculine gestures: imitation and initiation in American modernism
Abstract
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Masculine gestures: imitation and initiation in American modernism
- Creators
- Rachel Walerstein
- Contributors
- Kevin Kopelson (Advisor)Loren Glass (Advisor)Bluford Adams (Committee Member)Jennifer Buckley (Committee Member)Miriam Thaggert (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- English
- Date degree season
- Summer 2020
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005618
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xxxvii, 231 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2020 Rachel Walerstein
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- color illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (page 187-208).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Masculine Gestures: Imitation and Initiation in American Modernism argues that there was more than a single crisis of masculinity affecting men during the years between 1914 through 1940. While the soldiers, boxers, newspaper men, and writers who make up the chapters of the dissertation all yearned to be inducted into a stable tradition of masculinity, their failure to successfully imitate the available models of American manhood created the crisis from which multiple masculinities emerged. By exploring the various scenes of masculine initiation available to men at the time — the battlefield, the boxing ring, the white-collar office job, and the autobiographical form — Masculine Gestures traces the desire to endure as the preeminent gesture of American manhood. As such, Masculine Gestures illustrates how the character traits marked as “toxic” in the current moment arise from endurance’s failure to stabilize men against the warp and weft of public life.
- Academic Unit
- English
- Record Identifier
- 9983987796402771