Queer Masculinities

Queer Masculinities: A Critical Reader in Education makes a substantial contribution to contemporary scholarship on gender and sexuality studies in education. Collectively the essays in this volume illuminate a broad range of queer practices and representations of masculinity in education, demonstrating that any serious study of masculinity must consider the theoretical and political contributions that the concept of queer masculinities makes to a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of masculinity itself. In addition, Queer Masculinities encourages new approaches to educational theory and practice—while contributing more generally to knowledge production in the fields of critical masculinity studies and queer studies—by examining the complex interplay between queer masculinities and education.

 The essays range from empirical studies to theoretical reflections, and address themselves to three separate educational realms: the K-12 level, the collegiate level, and the pedagogy of cultural production. Some of the essays focus on the disorienting presence of queer masculine student and teacher bodies in the K-12 or college classroom, and on the effects of queer performances of masculinity on classroom dynamics and on processes of learning. Others reflect on the challenges of actively queering pedagogical practice and research methodologies, and on its practical and theoretical rewards. Still others emphasize the cultural pedagogy of representations of queer masculinities in television, documentary film, and the novel, with special attention to the transformative possibilities inherent in those representations that challenge gender norms, or that make them strange or incoherent. Indeed,  for many of the authors, the performative complexities of dislocating, “unmapping,” or “stealing” masculinity form the backdrop for an impassioned reflection on the cultural and pedagogical necessity of such an endeavor. In all, this volume’s breadth and detail make ita landmark publication in the study of queer masculinities, in critical masculinity studies as a whole, and in educational theory and practice.