301272 Masculinities, State, Territoriality (S) (SoSe 2025)

Gender-based violence is one of the most controversial challenges facing the Americas today. In the wake of feminist protests in recent years, powerful anti-feminist counter-discourses have developed on a global scale. The Internet has become a territory for gender struggles, violence against women, and 'weak' masculinity. Male interest groups use online forums to campaign for the 'recovery' of seemingly lost male privileges. This anti-feminism is also reflected at the institutional level. The policies and narratives of the Trump and Milei administrations, for example, portray any gender-sensitive and emancipatory project as a threat to families and society in general. The state as a central power structure thus continues to play an important role in the reproduction of political and hegemonic masculinities.

This interdisciplinary seminar explores the compatibilities and dissonances between political masculinism,feminist critiques of the state, and territoriality in hemispheric theoretical perspectives. We make a conceptual contribution to the "borderless state" on the one hand and to feminist state theory on the other. Concepts such as body-territory, new masculinities, and the manosphere are central.

This course will be taught in English. For Spanish or German original literature, English translations will be provided.

Bibliography

Background readings:
Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Castro-Varela, María do Mar/Dhawan, Nikita/Engel, Antke (Eds.) (2011). Hegemony and Heteronormativity. Revisiting 'The Political' in Queer Politics. Farnham, Ashgate.
Siles Bárcenas, Isaac Ali (2023). ¿Nuevas masculinidades? Una breve introducción. Ciudad de México, UNAM
Ludwig, Gundula/Sauer, Birgit (Eds.) (2024). Das kälteste aller kalten Ungeheuer? Annäherungen an intersektionale Staatstheorie. Frankfurt/New York, Campus Verlag.