Full Description
Imagining the city as a series of interconnected spaces, the book explores how several such connections - between the home and the street, family and public spaces, religious and non-religious contexts, for example - relate to the topic of masculinity. How do men - elite, subaltern, consumers, 'heads' of the family, members of 'Hindu fundamentalist' organisations, readers of pulp fiction and 'footpath pornography', those who admire the 'strong' political leader - move between these spaces, define them and are defined by them? Urbanisation in India is a vibrant site of an extraordinary cultural, social and economic churn, a context of both the consolidation of masculine identities as well as anxieties regarding their place in the city. The book suggests that sustained and in-depth engagements with specific historical and social contexts avoids tendencies to imagine cities as nodes of comparison that frequently generates universal models of urbanism.
Contents
List of Figures; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: Masculinity, Modernity, Urbanity; 2. Nationalism, Masculinity and the City; 3. Dislocated Masculinities and the Unofficial City; 4. Thrilling Affects: Sexuality, Masculinity, the City and 'Indian Traditions' in the Contemporary Hindi 'Detective' Novel; 5. Fragmentary Pleasures: Masculinity, Urban Spaces and the Commodity Politics of 'Religious Fundamentalists'; 6. Technotopias: Masculinity, Women, the City and the Post-national Condition; 7. Conclusion: Masculine Body Politics; Bibliography; Index.
