Donnell engages gender theory and cultural studies in order to shed light on cross-dressing- a common though poorly understood practice- in plays performed in Spain and Colonial Spanish America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author shows how certain naturalized assumptions about masculinity and femininity are unmasked through the cross-dressed performance of works attributed to Lope de Rueda, Morales, Lope de Vega, Monroy y Silva, and Calderon.

Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war. Yet contentious debates, and the scattering of scholarship across academic disciplines, have obscured understanding of how gender affects war and vice versa. In this authoritative and lively review of our state of knowledge, Joshua Goldstein assesses the possible explanations for the near-total exclusion of women from combat forces, through history and across cultures. Topics covered include the history of women who did fight and fought well, the complex role of testosterone in men's social behaviours, and the construction of masculinity and femininity in the shadow of war. Goldstein concludes that killing in war does not come naturally for either gender, and that gender norms often shape men, women, and children to the needs of the war system. lllustrated with photographs, drawings, and graphics, and drawing from scholarship spanning six academic disciplines, this book provides a unique study of a fascinating issue.

Sexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. In the past, Westerners viewed the Arab world as licentious, and Western intolerance of sex led them to brand Arabs as decadent; but as Western society became more sexually open, the supposedly prudish Arabs soon became viewed as backward. Rather than focusing exclusively on how these views developed in the West, in Desiring Arabs Joseph A. Massad reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. To this aim, he assembles a massive and diverse compendium of Arabic writing from the nineteenth century to the present in order to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization. A work of impressive scope and erudition, Massad’s chronicle of both the history and modern permutations of the debate over representations of sexual desires and practices in the Arab world is a crucial addition to our understanding of a frequently oversimplified and vilified culture. “A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic. . . . I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work.”—Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report “In Desiring Arabs, [Edward] Said’s disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor’s thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing. . . . [Massad] brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present.”—Financial Times

Netporn delves into the aesthetics and politics of sexuality in the era of do-it-yourself (DIY) Internet pornography. Katrien Jacobs, drawing on digital media theory and interviews with Web porn producers and consumers, offers an unprecedented critical analysis of Web culture as digital artistry and of the corresponding heightened government surveillance and censorship of the Internet. Netporn features Web users who question the goals of global commercial porn industries-whether they are engaged in Usenet fringes, video blogging, peer-to-peer distribution, porn art collectives, or decadent amateurism. Emphasizing gender and cultural differences, Jacobs shows how the creative uses of netporn images and services are important ways of exploring or redefining the 'network body' and indispensable ingredients of a maturing network society.

Can we live with the God of Ezekiel? Can we relate to a God who has established a multilayered hierarchy that separates the divine from the human, who creates boundaries that segregate people from the temple, the priesthood, and the glory of the Lord? In contrast to those who suggest that Ezekiel should no longer be read as an authoritative part of the canon, the essays in this volume engage Ezekiel's hierarchical world directly, neither dismissing it out of hand nor accepting it uncritically. By wedding theological interest and reflection with serious biblical exegesis and criticism, this work helps readers to understand Ezekiel's hierarchical theology-especially the book's views on creation, priesthood, and land. It thus equips readers to form their own evaluations of the relevance of Ezekiel's theology for today. Contributors include Daniel I. Block, Keith Carley, Stephen L. Cook, Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Iain M. Duguid, Friedrich Fechter, Julie Galambush, Norman Habel, Risa Levitt Kohn, Corrine L. Patton, David L. Petersen, Baruch J. Schwartz, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, and Steven Shawn Tuell. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

Progress towards gender parity is hindered by unconscious ways that hypermasculinity is valorized at a symbolic level. By deconstructing how social and textual phenomena as well as social structures contribute to gender performativity, we can elucidate hard-to-discern patterns that perpetuate hegemonic masculinity. The subliminal elevation of symbols of hypermasculinity excludes both women and non-gender conforming men. By delving into these symbolic meanings that operate subliminally, we can more effectively debunk beliefs that “real men” fall within narrow parameters of masculinity. There remains much to explore in terms of hidden pressures for men to constrain their expression of emotions, project an appearance of hardness, and equate violence with power, to name just a few persistent facets of toxic masculinity. While abstract forms of inculcating hypermasculinity are difficult to identify, interrogating their role in masculine performativity will result in a more comprehensive understanding of impediments to gender equality.

An in-depth treatment in two volumes of the historical and cultural contexts of rape and rape culture, this set discusses both victims and perpetrators internationally during war and peace times and examines the treatment of survivors. Historically, women, men, and children have all suffered sexual violence, during wartime and peacetime as well as inside and outside their homes. This two-volume title focuses on survivors of rape in a variety of social and cultural contexts. It examines different people who are victimized in a variety of situations (including in war and prisons) and studies the particularities of "rape cultures" that are intertwined with ethnic cultures and hatreds and other forms of conflictual social, political, and economic relations. In the introduction, the editors define rape and rape culture and provide historical and cultural context for the information presented throughout the volumes, the first of which primarily focuses on the causes and manifestations of rape cultures; the second considers the consequences of rape cultures for survivors of sexual assault. In both volumes, contributors provide case studies elucidating the experiences of a variety of victims—young, old, male, female, straight, and LGBT—in diverse locations around the world to help readers understand how truly pervasive and portentous rape culture is.