Not Staying in Their Place: An Historic Analysis of Mechanisms of Controlling Movement of Black Men in America through the Lenses of Social Identity and Gender

Since the arrival of enslaved Africans to the British colony of Virginia in the early 17th century, the spaces of Black men have been policed. Templates characterizing Black males as violent, dangerous, and sexually potent were fully developed by the 18th century and reflected in laws, practices, and systems designed to control their movement. This article applies lenses of social identity and gender to examine contemporary constructs of and practices toward Black men, tracing them back to their historical precursors. The authors contend that fear-based templates continue to be evoked in 21st century America to control the movement and space of Black men through systems and structures which criminalize, terrorize, and economically and educationally dis-advantage them. A major impetus for the development of these systems and structures has been the construction of White masculinities. The authors thus explore the co-constitutive nature of Black and White social identities, a central component of which is gender.

Of Comics and Charisma: Representing Transpacific White Masculinities

This article employs palimpsestuous reading practices to query the transpacific reach and imperial pedigree of the comic strip “Charisma Man.” Turning to Max Weber’s theory of “charismatic authority” to understand the comic’s humorous portrayals of white male heterosexual privilege in Asia, the article proposes that the comic strip illuminates the patterns of raced and gendered “hereditary charisma” that continue to haunt transpacific relations. “Charisma Man,” penned by a team of North American men living in Japan, links contemporary white migrants across Asia – especially native English teachers – with a longue durée of Euro-American imperial actors abroad and builds meaning through intertextual engagement with the iconic cultural texts Superman and Madame Butterfly. The article concludes that “Charisma Man” makes light of white male hereditary charisma in Asia through a layering of temporally-disjointed transpacific discourses and, in turn, adds one more layer to a palimpsestuous sedimentation of sexist and racist hierarchies, normalizing their continuation within contemporary globalization.

Past, Present (and Future) of Studies of Literary Masculinities: A Case Study in Intersectionality

This article offers an overview of studies of literary masculinities. After tracing their origins and development within the broader field of masculinity studies, it continues by illustrating the present applications of masculinity studies to literary criticism, ranging from studies of female to “ethnic” (i.e., both white and non-white) masculinities in literature, among others. This article concludes by showing that, as in the case of masculinity studies in general, current studies of literary masculinities could and should continue to draw on critical insights from intersectionality, as illustrated by rereading Douglass’ autobiographical slave (1845). Narrative from the perspective of both masculinity and whiteness studies.

“Life Savers”: Technology and White Masculinities in Twitter-Based Superhero Film Promotion

Drawing from social media studies and the literature on American economic decline and conceptualizations of gender and sexuality, this article asks how Twitter’s medium-specific features can be understood through an examination of its representational qualities in the context of the promotion of two contemporary superhero films. The accounts @BatmanvSuperman and @SpiderManMovie provide case studies of film promotion that uses Twitter’s particularities as a platform in order to advance distinct narratives about the films being promoted, via original tweets and retweets that, respectively, represent differing approaches to advertisement. Through this study, the article advances the arguments, first, that cultural representations are reflective of Twitter’s specificities as a social media platform, and second, that these representations work in conjunction with cultural norms of the contemporary US. One form of idealized White masculinity advanced by the latter is reliant on technology and its merging with the White man’s body. As a result, the technologies of superheroes’ suits as well as Twitter itself become representative of the present sociopolitical climate and its various aspirations and anxieties.