Front cover image for Brutes in suits : male sensibility in America, 1890-1920

Brutes in suits : male sensibility in America, 1890-1920

"In Brutes in Suits, John Pettegrew examines theoretical writings and cultural traditions in the United States to find that, Darwinian arguments to the contrary, masculine aggression can be interpreted as a modern strategy for taking power. Drawing ideas from varied and at times seemingly contradictory sources, Pettegrew argues that traditionally held beliefs about masculinity developed largely through language and cultural habit - and that these same tools can be employed to break through the myth that brutishness is an inherently male trait." "A major re-synthesis of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century manhood, Brutes in Suits develops ambitious lines of research into the social science of sexual difference and professional history's celebration of rugged individualism; the hunting-and-killing genre of popular men's literature; that master text of hypermasculinity: college football; military culture, war making, and finding pleasure in killing; and patriarchy, sexual jealousy, and the law. This assessment of the evolution of masculine culture will be welcomed and debated by social and intellectual historians."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2007
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007
History
xi, 409 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
9780801886034, 0801886031
70921415
PrefaceIntroduction: The De-Evolutionary Turn in U.S. MasculinityDarwin and Evolutionary Psychology, Then and NowJohn Dewey, Pierre Bourdieu, and Masculinity as a Habit of Mind"The Caveman within Us" and the Masculinist Culture of Mimicry1. Rugged IndividualismFrederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis: Origins, Composition, and MeaningsTurner's Influence on the Social Psychology of the CityRadical Individualism: Masculinist Art, Angst, and Alienation in the CityDudism, Cowgirl Feminism, and the Search for Authenticity in the "Old West"2. Brute FictionsThe American Literary Genre of Hunting and KillingReading for Plot: Call of the Wild, The Virginian, and the New Male ReadershipIrony, Atavism, and Other Variations on the De-Evolutionary Theme3. College FootballThorstein Veblen and the Rise of "Exotic Ferocity" in American College FootballVictor Turner, Stanford Football, and Hypermasculine Liminal SubjectsClifford Geertz at the Big Game: "Thick Description" of Football as the Cultural Equivalent of War4. War in the HeadCivil War Memory, Blood Sacrifice, and Modern American Fighting SpiritOf Rough Riders, Blood Brothers, and Roosevelt the BerserkerWar as Sport for Doughboys, Golden Boys, and SlackersPostscript: Marine Corps Spirit and the U.S. Warrior Class, 1941–20035. Laws of Sexual SelectionRace, Lynch Law, and the Manly ProvocationMarriage, Cultural Defense in The People v. Chen, and the Heat-of-Passion Defense in TexasCompulsory Heterosexuality, the Charles Atlas Muscle-Beach Fable, and Sexual Dimorphism UnboundEpilogue: Irony, Instinct, and WarIrony, Sam Fussell's Muscle, and Masculinity as a "Parodic Tableau Vivant"Instinct, Deep Masculinity, and the Decline of MalesThe Iraq War, Hypermasculinity, and the Metaphor of DiseaseNotesEssay on SourcesIndex