Sympathy for the Devil: Volatile Masculinities in Recent German and American Literatures
dc.contributor.advisor | Donahue, William C | |
dc.contributor.author | Knight, Mary Leslie | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2011-05-20T19:35:02Z | |
dc.date.available | 2011-05-20T19:35:02Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2011 | |
dc.department | German Studies | |
dc.description.abstract | This study investigates how an ambivalence surrounding men and masculinity has been expressed and exploited in Pop literature since the late 1980s, focusing on works by German-speaking authors Christian Kracht and Benjamin Lebert and American author Bret Easton Ellis. I compare works from the United States with German and Swiss novels in order to reveal the scope - as well as the national particularities - of these troubled gender identities and what it means in the context of recent debates about a "crisis" in masculinity in Western societies. My comparative work will also highlight the ways in which these particular literatures and cultures intersect, invade, and influence each other. In this examination, I demonstrate the complexity and success of the critical projects subsumed in the works of three authors too often underestimated by intellectual communities. At the same time, I reveal the very structure and language of these critical projects as a safe haven for "male fantasies" of gender difference and identity formation long relegated to the distant past, fantasies that continue to lurk within our cultural currencies. | |
dc.identifier.uri | ||
dc.subject | Germanic literature | |
dc.subject | American literature | |
dc.subject | Benjamin Lebert | |
dc.subject | Bret Easton Ellis | |
dc.subject | Christian Kracht | |
dc.subject | contemporary literature | |
dc.subject | Masculinity | |
dc.subject | misogyny | |
dc.title | Sympathy for the Devil: Volatile Masculinities in Recent German and American Literatures | |
dc.type | Dissertation |
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