Masculine gestures: imitation and initiation in American modernism

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.