Prof. Konstantin Dierks
Email: kdierks@indiana.edu
Office hours: Ballantine 734, Wednesdays, 12:15-2:15 p.m., or by appointment
Office phone: 855-6288
Course description:
This course concerns masculinity in early America between the late 15th
and the early 19th centuries. In keeping with current historiographical
trends, “early America” is defined broadly to encompass the Atlantic
world and to span English, French, Spanish, and other European colonization
of the Americas. Because this course is a research seminar, we
will use this historiography to examine various theoretical, conceptual
and methodological approaches to the study of masculinity in particular
and of gender more generally. (We obviously will not have sufficient
time for a comprehensive overview of the historiography.) We will
interrogate both work which features masculinity as its central focus, as
well as work which treats masculinity in service of another research goal.
Course requirements:
Class participation. Because this course is a seminar, its
success depends on your active participation in discussion. We will
meet for the first few weeks of the semester, and then pause for several
weeks to enable you to concentrate on your research and writing. Toward
the end of the semester, everyone will present an abbreviated version
of their work.
Reading assignments. Weekly reading is available either electronically, or on reserve or (in the case of journal articles) in the stacks at the Main Library. See the course syllabus below.
Writing assignments. The course will culminate in completion
of a journal-length research paper (8,000-10,000 words; i.e., 32-40 pages).
Before then, you will submit secondary- and primary-source bibliographies,
an outline, a partial rough draft, and a complete rough draft, as well
as present your research to the class.
Evaluation. You will be evaluated based on your participation
in discussion, timely submission of work, your presentation, and your
final research paper.
Assistance. If at any time during the semester you have questions about the course website, reading material, research paper, or your performance in this class, please feel free to speak to the professor before or after class, during office hours, via email, or via telephone to make an appointment.
Course syllabus:
| September 4 |
History of the History of Men/Manhood/Masculinity |
| Scott, Joan W., "Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis," American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1053-1075 [pdf via JSTOR] | |
| Gender and History 1:1 (1989)
esp. "Why Gender and History?" pp. 1-6 [HQ1075.G44] Gender and History 15:2 (2003) [access via Ingenta] |
|
| Parr, Joy, "Gender History and Historical
Practice," Canadian Historical Review 76 (1995): 354-376
[F1001.C2] |
|
| Traister,
Bryce, "Academic Viagra: The Rise of American Masculinity Studies,"
American Quarterly 52 (2000): 274-304 [pdf via Project
Muse] |
|
| September 11 |
Keywords and Concepts |
| Shepard, Alexandra, Meanings of Manhood
in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), table
of contents, pp. 1-17 (introduction), 246-253 (conclusion) |
|
| Brown, Kathleen,
Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender,
Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1996), table of contents, pp. 1-9 (introduction),
367-373 (afterword) [F229.B7873] |
|
| Norton, Mary
Beth, Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the
Forming of American Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), table
of contents, pp. 3-24 (introduction), 401-405 (conclusion) [HQ1075.5
U6 N67] |
|
| Roper, Michael, and Tosh, John, "Introduction:
Historians and the Politics of Masculinity," in Manful Assertions:
Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London: Routledge, 1991), pp.
1-24 [HQ1090.7 G7 M35] |
|
| Tosh, John, "What Should Historians do
with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-century Britain," History
Workshop Journal 38 (1994): 179-202 [HN1.H68] |
|
| Tosh, John, "The Old Adam and the New Man:
Emerging Themes in the History of English Masculinities, 1750-1850,"
in English Masculinities, 1660-1800, Tim Hitchcock and Michele
Cohen, eds. (London: Longman, 1999), pp. 217-238 [PR448.M37 E54] |
|
| Ditz,
Toby L., "What's Love Got to Do with It? The History of Men, The History
of Gender in the 1990s," Reviews in American History 28 (2000):
167-180 [pdf via Project Muse] |
|
| September 18 |
no meeting; RESEARCH PAPER STEP 1: secondary-source bibliography |
| September 25 |
Topics: Class,
Race, Religion |
| Toby
L. Ditz, "Shipwrecked; or, Masculinity Imperiled:
Mercantile Representations of Failure and the Gendered
Self in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia," Journal
of American History 81 (1994): 51-80 [pdf via JSTOR] |
|
| Bederman, Gail, Manliness and Civilization:
A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 1-44 (introduction)
[HQ1075.5 U6 B43] |
|
| Lindman,
Janet Moore, "Acting the Manly Christian: White Evangelical Masculinity
in Revolutionary Virginia," William and Mary Quarterly Ser. 3,
57 (2000): 393-416 [pdf via JSTOR] |
|
| October 2 |
Topics: Family,
Sexuality, Politics |
| Wilson,
Lisa, "'Ye Heart of a Father': Male Parenting in Colonial New England,"
Journal of Family History 24 (1999): 255-274 [access via Ingenta] |
|
| Foster,
Thomas, "Deficient Husbands: Manhood, Sexual Incapacity, and Male Marital
Sexuality in Seventeenth-Century New England," William and Mary Quarterly
Ser. 3, 56 (1999): 723-744 [pdf via JSTOR] |
|
| Appleby,
Joyce, "The American Heritage: The Heirs and the Disinherited," Journal
of American History 74 (1987): 798-813 [pdf via JSTOR] |
|
| Cuordileone,
K.A., "'Politics in an Age of Anxiety': Cold War Political Culture and
the Crisis in American Masculinity, 1949-1960," Journal of American
History 87 (2000): 515-545 [access via History Cooperative] |
|
| October 9 |
Topics: Literature,
Material Culture, Nation, Empire |
| RESEARCH PAPER STEP 2: primary-source
bibliography |
|
| Maurer, Shawn, Proposing Men: Dialectics
of Gender and Class in the Eighteenth-Century English Periodical (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998), table of contents, pp. 1-33 (introduction,
chapter 1) [PR925.M32] |
|
| Kuchta, David, The Three-Piece Suit
and Modern Masculinity: England, 1550-1850 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2002), table of contents, pp. 1-16 (introduction)
[GT733.K83] |
|
| Nelson, Dana, National Manhood: Capitalist
Citizenship and the Imagined Fraternity of White Men (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1998), table of contents, pp. 1-28 (introduction) [HQ1090.3
N42] |
|
| Stoler,
Laura Ann, "Tense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in North
American History and (Post) Colonial Studies," Journal of American
History 88 (2001): 829-865 [access via History Cooperative] |
|
| October 16 |
no meeting; RESEARCH PAPER STEP 3: one-page
outline |
| October 23 |
no meeting; RESEARCH
PAPER STEP 4: research update |
| October 30 |
no meeting |
| November 6 |
no meeting; RESEARCH
PAPER STEP 5: ten-page rough draft |
| November 13 |
presentations |
| November 20 |
presentations |
| November 27 |
no meeting; Thanksgiving
holiday |
| December 4 |
no meeting; RESEARCH
PAPER STEP 6: compete rough draft |
| December 11 |
no meeting |
| December 16 |
final meeting
(Tuesday); RESEARCH PAPERS DUE |