Contesting Slave Masculinity in the American South

David Stefan Doddington is Lecturer in North American History at Cardiff University. David has received research awards from the British Association of American Studies, the Eccles Centre at the British Library, and British American Nineteenth Century Historians. He has published work in journals such as Gender & History, the Journal of Global Slavery, and is working on a book entitled Writing the History of Slavery (forthcoming).

• Acknowledgements; Introduction: 'Are you men?'; 1. 'If I had my life to live over, I would die fighting rather than be a slave again': resistance, manhood, and survival in slavery; 2. 'The best amongst them was picked for that job': authority, discipline, and masculinity; 3. 'I never seen such a worker as my father': work, industry, and masculinity; 4. 'He am big and 'cause he so he think everybody do what him say': manhood, sex, and power; 5. “The best man whipped and the other one took it”: violence, leisure, and masculinity; Conclusion: contesting slave masculinity; Bibliography; Index.

'Doddington's riveting portraits of rebels and resistors, conspirators and collaborators offer nuanced insight into American slavery, as well as refreshing intersectional analysis of race, gender and sexuality. This book provides a powerful portrait of a key era, introducing more complex interpretations of dominance, violence, exploitation and vivid sketches of 'performing manhood' and homosocial subcultures. Doddington's emphasis on multiple hierarchies and competing community values is a welcome addition to this expanding field, enriching our understanding of struggles for those navigating the treacherous terrain of an antebellum slave South.' Catherine Clinton, author of Stepdaughters of History: Southern Women and the American Civil War