New Journal - New Male Studies: An International Journal

I found the announcement for this new journal at the National Coalition for Men site - the longest standing men's rights group in the country. Their agenda is centered on ending sexual discrimination against men - and how that plays out often looks like bashing all forms of feminism and, by extension, women in general.

The editor is Dr. Miles Groth, one of the leaders of the new male studies movement (an effort to reject the tradition of men's studies on the grounds that it grew out of the women's studies departments at most colleges and is therefore tainted with feminist beliefs and agendas). The advisory board includes Warren Farrell (of course) and Pelle Billing.

Maybe they will avoid the misogynistic tone that so often seems to be a part of the men's rights movement, with which this journal is indirectly affiliated, and present truly useful material for understanding the plight of men and boys in the 21st century. The first two issues are linked to below.

New Male Studies: An International Journal

SUNDAY, JULY 29, 2012

New Male Studies: An International Journal (NMS) is an open access online interdisciplinary forum for research and discussion of issues facing boys and men worldwide.

Rationale

In response to a now well-documented decline in the overall well-being of males in postmodern culture, a group of Australian, Canadian, European and American scholars have gathered to work together to publish research essays, opinion pieces, and book reviews on all aspects of the male experience.

Main Foci

Several broad areas of fundamental interest and concern have been identified:

(1) the experience and outcomes of education for boys and young men, (2) challenges and difficulties of developmental transition for males – especially adolescents, (3) significant disparities in health outcomes for men compared with women, (4) the vital role of fathering, (5) the inordinate number of males in the penal system, (6) the characterisations of men and boys cultivated within popular culture, academe, and many social institutions, and (7) how men experience and are affected by the kinds of occupational, familial, and social roles that are culturally required of them.

Tri-annual Publication

New Male Studies will three times annually publish invited manuscripts by experts in their fields as well as contributions by young scholars and others submitted for peer review.

Website design and web hosting provided by the Australian Institute of Male Health and Studies.

Editorial Stance

The journal’s editorial and advisory board members envision the new male studies as providing an academic, non-polemical, and proactive forum for the clarification of issues and the promotion of fresh approaches to understanding and addressing challenges boys and men currently face.

Quantitative and qualitative research, opinion pieces, essays, and relevant book reviews are welcome, as are reflections of a personal nature of interest to those who have had similar experiences.

Scholars will be published who work in areas as diverse as: law, economics, psychology, biology, genetics, medicine, anthropology, literature, education, forensics, public policy, demography, history, sociology, and other related disciplines.

The journal will play a pivotal role as a forum for discussion, and a clearinghouse of work being carried on in academe, government, and at the grassroots level. The work of all academics including independent scholars is especially welcome.

NMS Position Statement

Discussion of gender in the last half century has often been characterised by a polarisation of the sexes; making it very difficult to engage with issues of vital importance to healthy interpersonal and social relationships. Gender ideology - and reactions against it - all too often have not only curtailed possibilities of reasoned dialogue, but have sidelined crucial informative evidence and silenced individuals with unpopular views.

NMS recognises the need to pursue a different approach to understanding gender issues and the contemporary experience and roles of males in society; an approach that is:

· open to constructive academic dialogue guided by available evidence of a range of different academic disciplines, consideration of both men’s and women’s particular cultural experience and circumstances, and the indispensable contribution both sexes make to the quality and viability of family and community life;

· guided by principles of equity, intellectual integrity, and a view of human experience, society, and ethics that is inseparable from biological, psychological, cultural, economic realities

· careful to avoid intellectual reductionism, political partisanship, ideological advocacy and defensiveness, while instead openly pursuing enquiring and dynamic multidisciplinary scholarship

Download Issue 1.1 (2012) pp. 1-120 as a PDF

Download NMS Volume 1 Issue 2 as a PDF

Joseph Gelfer - Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 6.1 Preview

Joseph Gelfer is the editor of the Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality - Issue 6.1 will not be out until January, 2012. Even so, he has offered up a preview of one of the articles.

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 6.1 preview

Having just published an issue of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality we’re some way off the next (January 2012!), but for a brief preview the first article in press (responsible for introducing me to the golden nugget that is Christian Nymphos) is:

Holiness Sex: Conservative Christian Sex Practices as Acts of Sanctification by Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey (LeMoyne College, Syracuse)

In this paper about conservative Christian hetero-sex advice manuals I will pursue two lines of inquiry: First, I will argue exegetically that these texts represent a particular modern intertwining of sexual and religious discourses. Here, the bodies of the Christian heterosexual couple are shaped as tension-filled sites: In their sexual bodies the Evangelical men and women, who consume and contribute to these texts, are tasked to negotiate and endure the antinomies of sexual discourses in high modernity (Scott Jackson) in addition to those of Christian theologies of grace. While these manuals combine a discourse that highlights the importance to freely enjoy sexual pleasures, they also echo a wider cultural sense that sexuality is a dangerous power in need of constant disciplining. In terms of theology, this complicated shaping of hetero-sex enables a body theology of grace, in which it remains constantly unclear how much agency and submission the Christian man or Christian wife have to perform in the drama of salvation. As my second and theoretical line of inquiry, I will demonstrate how the proliferation of Christian advice products is part of the modernization of Evangelical heterosex discourse by creating a specific marketable and consumable identity of Christian sexuality.

I'm guessing this will be an interesting article, but I am amused by the author's need to complicate the diction as much as humanly possible. Cultural and gender theory writers obsessively violate the first rule of clear writing - Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS).

Maybe someone can explain to me why they feel this need to be obscure whenever possible?

Tags: men, masculinities, spirituality, journal, Christianity, sexuality, Joseph Gelfer, Journal of Men Masculinities and Spirituality, Volume 6.1, Preview, Holiness Sex, Conservative Christian Sex Practices, Acts of Sanctification, Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 5.2 now online

Via Joseph Gelfer, the editor, Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 5.2 is now online, and it's open access so the articles are freely available.

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality (JMMS) is an online, scholarly, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal. JMMS is published twice a year with provision for other special editions. JMMS seeks to be as inclusive as possible in its area of inquiry. Papers address the full spectrum of masculinities and sexualities, particularly those which are seldom heard. Similarly, JMMS addresses not only monotheistic religions and spiritualities but also Eastern, indigenous, new religious movements and other spiritualities which resist categorization. JMMS papers address historical and contemporary phenomena as well as speculative essays about future spiritualities. The academic interests of the editorial board reflect these diverse positions.

JMMS content is available freely on an open access basis as well as being aggregated by EBSCO, Gale-Cengage and Informit. JMMS content is also indexed by Scopus.

The Best of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality is now also in print and available from Gorgias Press.

Read more

Volume 5, Number 2: Table of Contents

Editorial:
Joseph Gelfer, The Boer's Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Peer Review (pp. 38-40)

Articles:
Roland Boer, The Patriarch's Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Biblical Hebrew (pp. 41-52)

Timothy D. Lincoln, Calling, Devotion, and Transformation: Men Embodying Spirituality at a Protestant Seminary (pp. 53-76)

Jared Champion, Hegemonic Masculinity and Blake's "Mission of Mercy": David Mamet's Cinematic Adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross as Postmodern Satire of Fundamentalist Christianity (pp. 77-96)

Chrysalis L. Wright, Intimate Relationship Behaviors of Cuban Male College Students (pp. 97-113)

Reviews:

Björn Krondorfer, Review of Manuel Borutta and Nina Verheyen (eds.), Die Präsenz der Gefühle: Männlichkeit und Emotion in der Moderne [The Presence of Emotions: Masculinity and Emotion in Modernity] (pp. 114-117)

Björn Krondorfer, Review of Margaret D. Kamitsuka (ed.), The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity (pp. 118-120)

Anton Karl Kozlovic, Review of Drucilla Cornell, Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity (pp. 121-124)

Nathan Abrams, Review of Harry Brod and Rabbi Shaw Israel Zevit (eds.), Brother Keepers: New Perspectives on Jewish Masculinity (pp. 125-126)

Download Vol. 5 No. 2 (748 KB PDF)

Tags: men, masculinities, spirituality, journal, Vol. 5 No. 2, Joseph Gelfer, scholarly, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal, open access, sexualities, gender roles

Art of Manliness - 30 Days to a Better Man - Day 8: Start a Journal

Great thing for men to do, have a journal. All too often we have no real way to get our feelings out or sort out what our feelings are, especially since a lot of us haven't gotten to the point where we can talk to our partners or friends about how we feel.

30 Days to a Better Man-Day 8: Start a Journal

June 7, 2009

My grandpa, Bill Hurst, was a journal writer his entire life. His journal was quite simple. He just kept a small notebook in the pocket of his pearl snap shirts and jotted down a short description of the things he did and the people he did it with. This is something he did pretty much every day for his entire life. He also kept extensive diaries of his time as a forest ranger in the Wasatch Range.

About 12 years ago, my grandpa took all these diaries and daily journal entries and began to write his memoir for his children and grandchildren. The finished product was a 500 page behemoth filled with stories from my grandfather’s life. Here’s just a few of the interesting things I learned from reading it:

• My grandpa met my grandma by hitting on her while she worked as a telephone operator.
• My grandpa helped pay for college by playing pool.
• He worked as a sheep herder during the summers in high school and college. He gives a very descriptive account on how castrating sheep is performed. He did it just like this.
• He has a scar from when he was hit by a car while racing his horse through the streets of his boyhood town. The horse died.
• As a boy, his family traveled by horse and buggy.

There’s more. Lots more. But while the stories are interesting, what I found more interesting was the commentary my grandpa gave on different events in his life. In these moments, he passed on some insights and lessons on what it means to be a man. My grandpa’s memoir is a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom from a life well lived. By writing his memoir, he guaranteed that his legacy will live on indefinitely.

But his life story would have been but a few pages long had he not kept a journal.

There are a myriad of other benefits to keeping a daily journal besides remembering what you ate five years ago. So today’s task is to start the journaling habit.

Great Men Keep Journals

In studying the lives of great men, I’ve noticed a common trait: they were all consistent journal writers. Now, I’m not saying that their greatness is directly attributable to their journaling. I’m sure Captain Cook would still have been a bad ass even if he hadn’t kept a diary. But I figure, if great men like these thought it was important to keep a journal, maybe I should, too. Heck, if it weren’t for their journals, we probably wouldn’t know much about their great lives and deeds.

Here’s a short list of great men from history who kept journals:

• Theodore Roosevelt
• Thomas Jefferson
• Charles Darwin
• Benjamin Franklin
• Lewis and Clark
• Andrew Carnegie
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Captain Cook
• Winston Churchill
• Sir Edmund Hilary
• Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
• Doogie Howser M.D

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Why Keep a Journal

Your children and grandchildren will want to read it. I know it’s hard to believe right now. Your life probably seems quite ordinary and of little interest to anyone else. And every generation believes that life will pretty much continue on like it is now. When your great-grandpa was kicking it in the 1920’s, he thought to himself, “Who would want to read about this new fangled radio or how I get my food out of an icebox? Phhht! That’s boring stuff!” But it’s not boring anymore; to this generation, such a peak at the olden days is fascinating. And so it is with you. When your grandkids are talking to people via hologram, they are going to be absolutely fascinated by your impressions of those ancient things like the alta vista and cell phones. And unfortunately, they’re not going to be curious about it until they get into their 20’s, realize you’re going to die, and start asking you questions.

Trust me, while you think that you’ll be able to remember everything just as clearly in the future, you won’t. Remember when you were a kid and you thought your experiences would be easily recalled at age 30? Now what do you remember from those days besides that time a dog bit you in the face?

As each year passes, the pixels of our memories burn out and the haze sets in. By age 80, you’ll only remember the faintest outlines of the big things that happened to you. But the stuff that’s really interesting is often the little, seemingly mundane details of life. What was a man’s daily routine like in 2009? Of course, the whipper snappers will ask you about the big stuff too: “Where were you when you found out about the attacks on the World Trade Center?” and “What did you think about the election of Barack Obama?” Your journals will give them the answers they’ll be looking for and will bring you closer.

And who knows? Maybe the whole world might be interested in your musings someday. You may not think so now, but how many famous men knew that they would be famous before they actually burst onto the scene? And how many men were ignored in their lifetime, only to be celebrated after their death?

It can bring you to your senses. Have you ever struggled with a choice, thought about it long and hard, made a decision, but then some time later started to regret it? Have you ever gotten into a rut from which you can’t seem to find a way out? A journal can aid you in these dilemmas. When you make a decision, you can write down all the reasons you have for coming to that conclusion. Then, after times passes, and you start doubting that choice, you can look back, remind yourself of why you made that decision in the first place, and feel reassured in pressing on. Or, it you’re in a depressed funk and don’t know how to extract yourself from it, you can look back through your journal to find the times when you were happiest. Old journal entries can help you rediscover the kind of changes you need to make to get your life back on track. Or you can look back at your journal and how you used to operate 5 years ago and think, “Damn! I never want to be that man again! What was I thinking?” A journal is basically a chance for your past self to lend counsel to your present self.

Finally, simply writing about your feelings and frustrations helps you focus on what’s really going on in your life and in your head, so that you can come up with a solution to your problems.

Journaling grants you immortality. Think of the billions of people who have and will perish from the earth without leaving a trace of themselves behind. They vanish into the ether, completely forgotten in the annals of history. A journal helps make you immortal. It is an tangible piece of evidence to leave behind that you were here! That you lived and loved! That there was such a person as Jared Matthews who lived in Austin, Texas who thought and breathed and died.

Journaling improves your health. Several studies have shown that writing about traumatic or stressful events and your deepest feelings and emotions boosts your emotional and physical health and sense of well-being.¹ Especially as men, we often tend to keep things bottled up. Journaling provides a excellent outlet to let go of those things that are bothering or worrying us.

Go read the rest to learn how to journal and what to journal about.

Tags: masculinity, men, journal, personal growth, Art of Manliness, 30 Days to a Better Man, Day 8, Start a Journal