Reeser is Professor of French and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He works in French studies, Renaissance studies, and gender/sexuality studies more broadly.
POSTHUMANISM AND THE MAN QUESTION Beyond Anthropocentric Masculinities Edited by Ulf Mellström and Bob Pease , 2023
Academic work on afect and masculinity has considered how normative or hegemonic masculinity can ... more Academic work on afect and masculinity has considered how normative or hegemonic masculinity can be transformed, queered, or momentarily disabled in afective moments. These kinds of progressive gender transformations, however, tend to be limited in time and in efect. This chapter discusses how masculinity functions representationally within circuits of afect for an open-ended duration. Yann Gonzalez's short flm Les Îles (Islands) (2017a) serves as a revelatory case study depicting unending afective circuits in which monstrous masculinity functions as a catalyst for-and an element of-a transmission of afect that produces new forms of gender subjectivity. Still, the flm does not simply depict masculinity as optimistic and progressive, as it also recalls hegemonic elements of masculinity represented by violence. With this bipartite construct, then, masculinity in short embodies gender-becoming with a caveat.
TOC for the almost-done Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect. 45 fantastic contributors on a ... more TOC for the almost-done Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect. 45 fantastic contributors on a host of gendered topics. Early career and established scholars. Feminism, masculinity, queer, trans*, history, futurity--it's all in here!
Editors' Introduction: This issue treats the intersections of feminism and critical studies on me... more Editors' Introduction: This issue treats the intersections of feminism and critical studies on men and masculinities (csmm), with articles that situate this intersection in relation to Beauvoir's oeuvre.
Jean de Létraz's unpublished, little-known vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Au... more Jean de Létraz's unpublished, little-known vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Auteuil) ends, after the stage goes black and just before the curtain falls, with six characters performing a genital inspection on the main character Camille, who passed as both a man and a woman over the course of the play. Performed at the Palais-Royal Theatre in Paris in 1952, the comic play highlights anxieties in the 50 s about how cisgender communities know who is and is not "transsexual. " This article interprets this striking final scene in light of the rest of the play and the legal, medical, and cultural context of 1950s France, arguing that the genital inspection performs the reestablishment of public order out of gender disorder at the same time as it warns the French public about the coming hegemony of binarized sexual definition based on external appearance of genitalia, as codified in French juridical discourse. Performed in October 1952 at the Palais-Royal Theatre in Paris, Jean de Létraz's vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Auteuil) opens with the central character Camille presenting as a cisgender heterosexual man, but over the course of three acts, he becomes highly confused about his sex, gender, and sexuality. 1 There is no overarching plot as the play is composed of a series of comic interactions between Camille and the other characters in his apartment. At the start of Act 1, twenty-yearold Solange comes to see Camille to tell him that he is the father of her baby, but Camille has not had sex with her. He has published a well-known book on virginity, but his friend Stéphane has marketed it as written by a chaste woman named Camille (a unisex name in French). Stéphane wants to bed Brigitte and invites her to Camille's place, but she happens to be married to Philippe, who suddenly appears to check up on his wife. Stéphane then convinces Camille to don woman's clothing and a wig (which he happens to have with him) and to pass as a woman. With Camille the virgin present in the apartment, Stéphane will have cover for his seduction scheme. However, Camille passes so successfully that the heterosexual male characters Philippe and Aristide-who appears later-fall for Camille, the latter deciding that he wants to marry him. Brigitte shows up again later, and an erotic attraction develops between her and Camille who is presenting as a woman.
Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies, 2020
What does or can "affect" do to masculinity? The widespread "affective turn"-which Patricia Cloug... more What does or can "affect" do to masculinity? The widespread "affective turn"-which Patricia Clough (2007) described as "a new configuration of bodies, technology, and matter instigating a shift in thought in critical theory" (p. 2)-has allowed gender studies scholars to shift beyond language-focused theoretical approaches to gender. Affect studies has emerged in part through and with feminist and queer studies, but masculinity has not significantly factored into this work. As a result, this chapter offers ways to approach critical studies of men and masculinity in light of affect studies. The goal is to offer gender studies scholars approaches to include and to adapt in their own work.
Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s 2016 film Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau (Paris 05:59:... more Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s 2016 film Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau (Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo) concludes on an Orphic note, inviting a consideration of the entire film as based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The film appropriates but also radically transforms elements of the foundational myth—including especially Orpheus’s turn to pederasty in Ovid’s Latin version—crafting a queer love story based on potentiality out of the tragedy of the heterosexual love story. In so doing, the film channels Herbert Marcuse’s idea of Orphic refusal in Eros and Civilization, opening up the myth to reconfigure Orphic constructs of gender and sexuality for utopian ends.
Under neoliberalism, the relation between awkward affect and normative masculinity can be underst... more Under neoliberalism, the relation between awkward affect and normative masculinity can be understood through two contrasting models. Awkward relations may be evoked to be contained and managed, a model exemplified by the series Impractical Jokers. The series Louie, however, showcases an awkwardness revealing the potential for new kinds of gendered relations.
Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New Directions (Routledge Advances in Femin... more Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New Directions (Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality) by Josep M. Armengol (Editor), Marta Bosch Vilarrubias (Editor), Àngels Carabí (Editor), Teresa Requena (Editor).
POSTHUMANISM AND THE MAN QUESTION Beyond Anthropocentric Masculinities Edited by Ulf Mellström and Bob Pease , 2023
Academic work on afect and masculinity has considered how normative or hegemonic masculinity can ... more Academic work on afect and masculinity has considered how normative or hegemonic masculinity can be transformed, queered, or momentarily disabled in afective moments. These kinds of progressive gender transformations, however, tend to be limited in time and in efect. This chapter discusses how masculinity functions representationally within circuits of afect for an open-ended duration. Yann Gonzalez's short flm Les Îles (Islands) (2017a) serves as a revelatory case study depicting unending afective circuits in which monstrous masculinity functions as a catalyst for-and an element of-a transmission of afect that produces new forms of gender subjectivity. Still, the flm does not simply depict masculinity as optimistic and progressive, as it also recalls hegemonic elements of masculinity represented by violence. With this bipartite construct, then, masculinity in short embodies gender-becoming with a caveat.
TOC for the almost-done Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect. 45 fantastic contributors on a ... more TOC for the almost-done Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect. 45 fantastic contributors on a host of gendered topics. Early career and established scholars. Feminism, masculinity, queer, trans*, history, futurity--it's all in here!
Editors' Introduction: This issue treats the intersections of feminism and critical studies on me... more Editors' Introduction: This issue treats the intersections of feminism and critical studies on men and masculinities (csmm), with articles that situate this intersection in relation to Beauvoir's oeuvre.
Jean de Létraz's unpublished, little-known vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Au... more Jean de Létraz's unpublished, little-known vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Auteuil) ends, after the stage goes black and just before the curtain falls, with six characters performing a genital inspection on the main character Camille, who passed as both a man and a woman over the course of the play. Performed at the Palais-Royal Theatre in Paris in 1952, the comic play highlights anxieties in the 50 s about how cisgender communities know who is and is not "transsexual. " This article interprets this striking final scene in light of the rest of the play and the legal, medical, and cultural context of 1950s France, arguing that the genital inspection performs the reestablishment of public order out of gender disorder at the same time as it warns the French public about the coming hegemony of binarized sexual definition based on external appearance of genitalia, as codified in French juridical discourse. Performed in October 1952 at the Palais-Royal Theatre in Paris, Jean de Létraz's vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Auteuil) opens with the central character Camille presenting as a cisgender heterosexual man, but over the course of three acts, he becomes highly confused about his sex, gender, and sexuality. 1 There is no overarching plot as the play is composed of a series of comic interactions between Camille and the other characters in his apartment. At the start of Act 1, twenty-yearold Solange comes to see Camille to tell him that he is the father of her baby, but Camille has not had sex with her. He has published a well-known book on virginity, but his friend Stéphane has marketed it as written by a chaste woman named Camille (a unisex name in French). Stéphane wants to bed Brigitte and invites her to Camille's place, but she happens to be married to Philippe, who suddenly appears to check up on his wife. Stéphane then convinces Camille to don woman's clothing and a wig (which he happens to have with him) and to pass as a woman. With Camille the virgin present in the apartment, Stéphane will have cover for his seduction scheme. However, Camille passes so successfully that the heterosexual male characters Philippe and Aristide-who appears later-fall for Camille, the latter deciding that he wants to marry him. Brigitte shows up again later, and an erotic attraction develops between her and Camille who is presenting as a woman.
Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies, 2020
What does or can "affect" do to masculinity? The widespread "affective turn"-which Patricia Cloug... more What does or can "affect" do to masculinity? The widespread "affective turn"-which Patricia Clough (2007) described as "a new configuration of bodies, technology, and matter instigating a shift in thought in critical theory" (p. 2)-has allowed gender studies scholars to shift beyond language-focused theoretical approaches to gender. Affect studies has emerged in part through and with feminist and queer studies, but masculinity has not significantly factored into this work. As a result, this chapter offers ways to approach critical studies of men and masculinity in light of affect studies. The goal is to offer gender studies scholars approaches to include and to adapt in their own work.
Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s 2016 film Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau (Paris 05:59:... more Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s 2016 film Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau (Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo) concludes on an Orphic note, inviting a consideration of the entire film as based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The film appropriates but also radically transforms elements of the foundational myth—including especially Orpheus’s turn to pederasty in Ovid’s Latin version—crafting a queer love story based on potentiality out of the tragedy of the heterosexual love story. In so doing, the film channels Herbert Marcuse’s idea of Orphic refusal in Eros and Civilization, opening up the myth to reconfigure Orphic constructs of gender and sexuality for utopian ends.
Under neoliberalism, the relation between awkward affect and normative masculinity can be underst... more Under neoliberalism, the relation between awkward affect and normative masculinity can be understood through two contrasting models. Awkward relations may be evoked to be contained and managed, a model exemplified by the series Impractical Jokers. The series Louie, however, showcases an awkwardness revealing the potential for new kinds of gendered relations.
Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New Directions (Routledge Advances in Femin... more Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New Directions (Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality) by Josep M. Armengol (Editor), Marta Bosch Vilarrubias (Editor), Àngels Carabí (Editor), Teresa Requena (Editor).
The works of Francois Rabelais embody the Renaissance spirit of discovery and are crucial to the ... more The works of Francois Rabelais embody the Renaissance spirit of discovery and are crucial to the development of early modern prose and to the birth of the novel. This volume's essays present strategies for the classroom, discussing the classical and biblical allusions; the context of humanism and evangelical reform; various themes; both feminism and masculinity as vexing subjects; Rabelais's erudition; and the challenges of teaching his inventive language, his ambiguity, and his scatology.
... Ronald W. Tobin Colette H. Winn Luso-Brazilian Severino Albuquerque Paul Dixon Earl E. Fitz J... more ... Ronald W. Tobin Colette H. Winn Luso-Brazilian Severino Albuquerque Paul Dixon Earl E. Fitz Jose Ornelas Darlene Sadlier Ronald ... Gonzalez Echevarria Margaret Jones Alejandro Mejias-Lopez Sylvia Molloy Oscar Montero Ciriaco Moron Arroyo Julio Ortega Rosa Perelmuter ...
Michel de Montaigne’s essay “On Some Verses of Virgil” is known for its discussion of Renaissance... more Michel de Montaigne’s essay “On Some Verses of Virgil” is known for its discussion of Renaissance marriage, masculinity, male and female sexuality, and the nature and status of women. With this focus on what we might today call heterosexuality, this article treats the question of what the recurring references to ancient male-male eros are doing in the essay. It is not the case, however, that same-sex sexuality is simply discussed openly in this text treating the topic of candid descriptions of sex and sexuality more broadly: rather, it is half-hidden and half-visible, neither fully absent nor fully present. same-sex male sexuality functions as a queer purveyor of energetic masculinity that can help solve the problem of the essayist’s aging and limp masculinity. The use of erotic object choice in Montaigne’s essay pertains not so much to suppression or repression, then, but to the transmission of affect between same-sex eros and masculinity. This textual energy is created by virtue of an erotic game of absence-presence that mirrors a central idea of the essay, that ancient Latin poets’ descriptions of male-female sexuality have more erotic force when they do not represent sex too openly.
On considère les questions de transition ou de changement de genre comme des inventions du xxe si... more On considère les questions de transition ou de changement de genre comme des inventions du xxe siècle, mais en fait elles sont implicites dans l'œuvre de Montaigne. Cet article analyse la réception de la pensée de l'essayiste dans le discours moderne sur la transidentité et propose qu'elle joue un rôle important dans l'articulation et la compréhension de la catégorie culturelle « transsexualité ».
Abstract:Under neoliberalism, the relation between awkward affect and normative masculinity can b... more Abstract:Under neoliberalism, the relation between awkward affect and normative masculinity can be understood through two contrasting models. Awkward relations may be evoked to be contained and managed, a model exemplified by the series Impractical Jokers. The series Louie, however, showcases an awkwardness revealing the potential for new kinds of gendered relations.
Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 2022
Jean de Létraz's unpublished, little-known vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La puce... more Jean de Létraz's unpublished, little-known vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Auteuil) ends, after the stage goes black and just before the curtain falls, with six characters performing a genital inspection on the main character Camille, who passed as both a man and a woman over the course of the play. Performed at the Palais-Royal Theatre in Paris in 1952, the comic play highlights anxieties in the 50 s about how cisgender communities know who is and is not "transsexual. " This article interprets this striking final scene in light of the rest of the play and the legal, medical, and cultural context of 1950s France, arguing that the genital inspection performs the reestablishment of public order out of gender disorder at the same time as it warns the French public about the coming hegemony of binarized sexual definition based on external appearance of genitalia, as codified in French juridical discourse. Performed in October 1952 at the Palais-Royal Theatre in Paris, Jean de Létraz's vaudeville play The Maiden of Auteuil (La pucelle d'Auteuil) opens with the central character Camille presenting as a cisgender heterosexual man, but over the course of three acts, he becomes highly confused about his sex, gender, and sexuality. 1 There is no overarching plot as the play is composed of a series of comic interactions between Camille and the other characters in his apartment. At the start of Act 1, twenty-yearold Solange comes to see Camille to tell him that he is the father of her baby, but Camille has not had sex with her. He has published a well-known book on virginity, but his friend Stéphane has marketed it as written by a chaste woman named Camille (a unisex name in French). Stéphane wants to bed Brigitte and invites her to Camille's place, but she happens to be married to Philippe, who suddenly appears to check up on his wife. Stéphane then convinces Camille to don woman's clothing and a wig (which he happens to have with him) and to pass as a woman. With Camille the virgin present in the apartment, Stéphane will have cover for his seduction scheme. However, Camille passes so successfully that the heterosexual male characters Philippe and Aristide-who appears later-fall for Camille, the latter deciding that he wants to marry him. Brigitte shows up again later, and an erotic attraction develops between her and Camille who is presenting as a woman.
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Papers by Todd Reeser
Orpheus and Eurydice. The film appropriates but also radically transforms elements of the foundational myth—including especially Orpheus’s turn to pederasty in Ovid’s Latin version—crafting a queer love story based on potentiality out of the tragedy of the heterosexual love story. In so doing, the film channels Herbert Marcuse’s idea of Orphic refusal in Eros and Civilization, opening up the myth to reconfigure Orphic constructs of gender and sexuality for utopian ends.
for new kinds of gendered relations.
by Josep M. Armengol (Editor), Marta Bosch Vilarrubias (Editor), Àngels Carabí (Editor), Teresa Requena (Editor).
Orpheus and Eurydice. The film appropriates but also radically transforms elements of the foundational myth—including especially Orpheus’s turn to pederasty in Ovid’s Latin version—crafting a queer love story based on potentiality out of the tragedy of the heterosexual love story. In so doing, the film channels Herbert Marcuse’s idea of Orphic refusal in Eros and Civilization, opening up the myth to reconfigure Orphic constructs of gender and sexuality for utopian ends.
for new kinds of gendered relations.
by Josep M. Armengol (Editor), Marta Bosch Vilarrubias (Editor), Àngels Carabí (Editor), Teresa Requena (Editor).