CFP: The Flourishing of New Men: Ecomasculinities in North America

Call for Papers Edited Volume: The Flourishing of New Men: Ecomasculinities in North America (provisional title)

Editor: Rubén Cenamor

Traditionally, the relationship between the American male and nature has been that of the dominant and the dominated. From the real-life case of Teddy Roosevelt and his son Kermit to the fictionalized lives of cowboys, pioneers, and other western heroes, men have proved their masculinity by subduing nature to his will and by exploring, penetrating and conquering the 'virgin land'. This subjugation has led ecofeminists to argue that women and nature share the same history of oppression by men (Gaard 1993).

Postmodernist literature, scholars argue, slowly began to question and problematize this relationship, eventually creating what Stefan Brandt calls "ecomasculinity". The "eco-man" presents a subversive, more nuanced model of manhood which can embrace non-masculine traits and is also deeply conservationist (Brandt 2015). The works of Annie Proulx and Gretel Ehrlich, just to mention a couple of examples, depict this counter-discourse to the traditional rhetoric of masculine self-affirmation through the exploitation of nature. Indeed, their heroes no longer exalt and pursue hypermasculinity but rather try to find a balance between masculine and feminine qualities while embracing caring and nurturing attitudes towards the environment.

This panel seeks to further explore this new relationship between the American male and nature, and the challenges it poses to our times of economic, ideological and spiritual crisis. What kind of impact can ecomasculinity have in our globalized neoliberal capitalist world? What about gender relationships? How, if at all, can the "eco-man" pave the way to alternative models of masculinity and to more gender egalitarian societies?

We invite proposals on these topics and welcome other themes related to:

• The potential of ecomasculinities for social changes

• Ecomasculinities and/in relation to natural disasters  

• Ecomasculinities and Feminist theory

• Theoretical approaches to Ecomasculinities

• Transnationalism and Ecomasculinities

• Politics/space/race and Ecomasculinity

• Examples of ecomasculinity prior postmodernism

• Big and small screen representations of ecomasculinity

• Real-life eco-men

This edited volume has received strong interest from the editor of the Ecocritical Theory and Practice series, published by Rowman & Littlefield's imprint Lexington Books (US).