Leading with the Chin

Brad Congdon received his PhD from Dalhousie University, where he is an Instructor in Gender & Women’s Studies and English.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Crisis of Masculinity and the Problem of IdentityTheoretical and Methodological BackgroundCase Study: November 1958Chapter BreakdownPart One: Recovering Masculinity in the 1960s1 American Dreams, Gendered Nightmares1. The Crisis of Masculinity and the Problem of Conformity2. Hegemonic Masculinity in An American Dream3. An American Dream and Esquire Magazine4. Conclusion2 Cooling It with James Baldwin1. Baldwin’s Critique of Hegemonic Masculinity2. Baldwin’s Queer Critique of Race in Esquire3. "James Baldwin Tells Us All How to Cool It This Summer"4. ConclusionPart Two: "The Richness of Life Itself" in the 1970s3 Low-Rent Tragedies of Beset Manhood1. "The Market Represents": Esquire, Carver, and Consumer Realism2. Carver’s First Esquire Story: "Neighbors" and the "Space" of Advertising3. "What Is It?" and "Collectors" – Reified Masculinities, Diminished Selfhood4. Conclusion4 True Men and Queer Spaces in Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers1. Gay Visibility and Esquire’s Queer ’70s2. Capote’s Critique of Heteronormativity3. Fugitives from the Gender Order: Best-Kept Boys and Queer Utopias4. ConclusionPart Three: Cold Warriors of the 1980s5 Sexual Fallout in Tim O’Brien’s The Nuclear Age1. Cold War Discourse and Gender Trouble in The Nuclear Age2. Cold Warriors and Cowboys: "Somewhere the Duke Is Smiling"3. Retrenching the Domestic Sphere in "Grandma’s Pantry"4. "Ovaries Like Hand Grenades": Emphasized Femininities in The Nuclear Age5. Conclusion6 Don DeLillo in the American Kitchen1. "Men in Small Rooms": American Masculinity, American Kitchens2. "Suck in That Gut, America!": JFK’s Exemplary Masculinities3. Getting a Grip on the Runaway World: The Author as Exemplary Masculinity4. ConclusionConclusion: How to Be a ManNotesWorks CitedIndex