Comprising seven different chapters, the collection Men in Color attempts to analyze, and revisit, the representation of ethnic masculinities, both white and non-white, in and through contemporary U.S. literature and cinema. If most of the existing studies on masculinity and race have centered on one specific model of racialized masculinities, Men in Color attempts to provide an introductory perspective on different racialized masculinities simultaneously, including African American, Asian American, Chicano, Arab American, and also white masculinity, which is analyzed as another ethnic and gendered construct, rather than as a paradigm of normalcy and universality. By exploring several ethnic masculinities in relation to each other, the present volume aims to highlight both the differences and the similarities between different patterns of masculinity, showing how, even as gender is inflected by race, certain aspects or features of masculinity remain unchanged across the ethnic board. Ultimately, the volume as a whole illustrates both the changing nature of masculinities as well as the recurrence of certain stereotypes, such as the hypersexualization and/or the feminization of ethnic males, which recur in and across several ethnicities. The constant tension and intersection between gender and race is the subject of this book, which hopes to contribute some notes and reflections on ethnic masculinities to the much more complex and larger discussion about gender and racial identities in our increasingly multicultural and globalized 21st-century world.
About the Author: Josep M. Armengol obtained his Ph.D. in English (with Honors) from the University of Barcelona, Spain, with the thesis Gendering Men: Theorizing Masculinities in American Culture and Literature (2006). A renowned masculinity scholar, he has lectured and published extensively on masculinity studies, especially on literary representations of masculinity, in prestigious academic journals such as Signs, Men and Masculinities, the Hemingway Review, and Journal of Men's Studies, among others. His latest books include Re/Presenting Men: Cultural and Literary Constructions of Masculinity in the U.S. (2008), Debating Masculinity (2009), and Richard Ford and the Fiction of Masculinities (2010). He is also an international advisory editor for the academic journal Men and Masculinities (Sage Publications). Currently, he is Associate Professor of English at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, where he is working on a new book on masculinities in African American fiction.