Richard Ford and the Fiction of Masculinities

The Author: Josep M. Armengol obtained his Ph.D. in English (with Honors) from the University of Barcelona, Spain, and is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Castile-La Mancha, Spain. A renowned masculinity scholar, he has lectured and published extensively on masculinity studies, especially on literary representations of masculinity, in prestigious academic journals such as Men and Masculinities and Journal of Men's Studies, among others. Armengol's latest books include Re/Presenting Men: Cultural and Literary Constructions of Masculinity in the U.S. (2008); Debating Masculinity (2009); and Men in Color: Racialized Masculinities in U.S. Literature and Cinema (forthcoming). He is working on a new book on masculinities in African American fiction.

«Josep M. Armengol represents the best of a new generation of literary critics, steeped in theory, but versed in the classical tools of literary excavation: close reading, textual analysis, and an understanding of genre. His work is theoretically informed rather than theory-driven, and in his skilled hands, Ford's work is not reduced to some thin meditation on masculinity but rather takes on added layers of meaning. What's more, Armengol represents the globalization of gender studies: a Spanish scholar, writing in English, discussing a major American novelist, by situating him within the specificity of American post-Vietnam culture and within specifically gendered discourses of that era. Looking at the work from both outside (as a cultural outsider himself) and inside (through the text itself), Armengol illuminates Ford's work in new and profound ways.» (Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology, Stony Brook University; Author of 'Manhood in America: A Cultural History '(1996) and' Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men '(2008))
«Josep M. Armengol intertwines his broad knowledge of literary criticism with a deep scholarly interest in gender theory, producing a text that provides innovative reflection on his own twin passions - literature and masculinity. The interest and originality of this book is the complexity and nuance that constitutes Armengol's probing analysis of Ford's style, characterization, language and plot, especially his focus on the ways in which the power and privileges attending men's habitual performances and identifications are at all times shadowed by and imbricated with the ever more insecure, fragile nature of contemporary 'masculinity.' ... Armengol provides a definitive overview of the depictions of gender relations, male bonding, and sexuality that pervade Ford's fiction.» (Lynne Segal, Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies, School of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London; Author of' Slow