Professor: Tobin Hansen

4.00 credits

• CRN 36004: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:20pm @ CHA 202

This course explores the shifting meanings; expressions; and social, cultural, and political implications of masculinities from a comparative cultural perspective. We will examine masculinities—considering gender alongside other aspects of social difference such as race, class, nationality, and sexuality—in U.S. and global cross-cultural contexts.

The course considers pathways of socialization into toxic, hyper-, or aggressive masculinities as well as into nurturing and collaborative masculinities and the various connections between masculinities and institutions. The course takes a humanistic social scientific approach to gender, engaging ideas from gender and sexuality studies, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies.

After a brief overview of biological and sex role approaches to gender studies, the course focuses principally on masculinities as cultural constructs that take form within constellations of gendered practices and perceptions that exist in relation to race and other facets of social difference. Having set out this conceptual framework, the course goes on to consider the relationships between masculinities and other social identities.

Graduation Requirement: This class will fulfill Social Science colloquium and US: Difference, Inequality, and Agency requirements. If Social Science has already been fulfilled, course will meet both elective colloquium and US: Difference, Inequality, and Agency requirements.