Male Matters: Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Male Body on the Line

      Calvin Thomas's Male Matters         reveals the act and production of writing as a bodily, material process         that transgresses the boundaries of gender. Wise and quirky, sophisticated         and coarse, serious and hilarious, this look at male identity and creativity         and dislocation at the end of the twentieth century definitely will not         assuage male anxiety!       "An excellent and important         book. . . . By mixing high and low, by speaking candidly about what we         usually keep in the (water) closet, while simultaneously engaging the         'highest' philosophies of language and culture, Thomas calls the entire         enterprise of criticism into question." -- Jeremy Earp, Journal         of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity       "A brave, indispensable         exercise in writing the male body, and a tour de force of theoretically         informed close reading." -- Kevin Floyd, Journal of the Midwest         Modern Language Association       "Both analyzes and performs         our anxieties about masculinity. . . . This experiment in criticism transgresses         boundaries of theory, gender, and academic taste in ways sure to delight         and infuriate its readers." -- Gregory Jay, author of America         the Scrivener: Deconstruction and the Subject of Literary History       "Calvin Thomas is able         to hint at a way out of the prison-house, as he puts it, of straight male         identity." -- Kathy Acker, author of In Memoriam to Identity