Oblicza męskości / Faces of Masculinity
Oblicza męskości / Faces of Masculinity

Contributor(s): Ewa Bogdanowska-Jakubowska (Editor)
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Psychology, Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Faces of masculinity; masculinity; transformation of masculinity
Summary/Abstract: Masculinity, like femininity, has always fascinated laymen as well as scholars. The multi‑dimensional character of the concept makes us willing to investigate its nature. The fact that masculinity, like femininity, has a great impact on the individual’s life, psyche, social relations and even language, makes it a focus of interest for scholars representing many academic disciplines. The book is a good illustration of the above. It is a collection of papers that have a common topic – masculinity, dealt with in various ways and looked at from different perspectives. In the first paper, Jolanta Klimczak and Kazimiera Wódz analyse changes of masculinity observed in working‑class communities in selected cultures (Polish culture included). The study represents a sociological perspective. Next two papers, written from a psychological perspective, deal with genderrelated problems. Tomasz Jakubowski presents a case study of de‑transition (a return to one’s gender assigned at birth). Maja Gwóźdź writes about the so‑called thwarted masculinity, analysing how intersexuality is represented in literary discourse (Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel Middlesex). To draw a linguistic picture of men and masculinity is the aim of the following two papers. Marcin Kuczok carries out a contrastive study of linguistic representations of men and masculinity in Polish and English proverbs. My paper is a critical analysis of Polish political discourse (produced by male politicians). Next, in the text by Wojciech Wachowski and Alicja Szmaus‑Jackowska, differences in expressing taboo content between men and women are investigated within the framework of the cognitive theory of metaphor. The subsequent two papers try to present a picture of masculinity existing in Polish writing. Analysing press, ethnographic, historical and literary sources, Anna Hanusiak draws a picture of the Karpatian highlander robber. Jan Musiał presents a literary study of masculinity according to the historian and literary critic – Stefan Kołaczkowski. The discussion on masculinity is concluded by Patrycja Kowalik and Adrian Witkowski who write about masculinity crisis in modern society. The papers presented below do not provide a complete picture of masculinity; they only form a fragmentary description of the complex and multi‑dimensional concept constantly undergoing changes which are socially and culturally conditioned. The papers, however, can be considered a valuable contribution to an analysis of masculinity in modern society, and its representations in language and culture.

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