By Bernie DeGroat
News and Information Services
The second of a special two-part Michigan Quarterly Review (MQR) devoted to the male body is now available.
The winter 1994 edition contains essays, fiction, poetry and graphics examining male sexuality; body image; aging; puberty; AIDS; and the male body in contemporary art, science fiction and Hollywood cinema.
“At a time when studies of masculinity have become a significant part of the academic curriculum and a popular topic of academic research, and when media attention to manhood has accelerated, this anthology is a fascinating source of knowledge about the male sex,” says MQR editor and English Prof. Laurence Goldstein, whose poetry appears in the winter issue.
“ ‘Men’s bodies are the most dangerous things on earth,’ writes Margaret Atwood. As she and other writers reveal in the process of considering the subject, however, changes in contemporary culture and society demand very sophisticated judgments about who men are, how they look, and why they act as they do,” Goldstein says. “Precisely how society works upon men’s bodies, and vice versa, is the subject most interesting to authors in this double issue.”
U-M scholars who contributed to this special edition include Ruth Behar, associate professor of anthropology and of women’s studies, who writes an essay on the male child addressed to her young son; doctoral student Andrew Campbell and Nathan Griffith, a recent Ph.D. graduate, who curate a portfolio of artists; Alfred G. Meyer, professor emeritus of political science, who translates a story on AIDS by German author Mario Wirz; Eric S. Rabkin, professor of English, who surveys attitudes toward masculinity in science fiction; and David S. Rosen, assistant professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases, who writes an essay on adolescent sexuality.
Others whose works are included in the winter edition of MQR are Christianne Balk, Dennis Bingham, Leo Braudy, Edward Field, Michael S. Kimmel, Evelyn Lau, Paul Monette, Nicholas Samaras, Brad Sewell and Alan Soldofsky.
The fall 1993 and winter 1994 issues are available in local bookstores and in the MQR office in Room 3032, Rackham Building. Cost is $8 each, $16 for both.
