Halperin's Masculinity Course on How-To-Be

Hat tip to Liam for the link.
I have been a Halperin reader since 2002. I especially enjoy his gendered 'reading' of the Greeks and his work, Saint Foucault, is, in my humble opinion, his strongest and most sincere so far. In it he publicly admits that he had fallen prey to other scholars’ dislike of Foucault during the early part of his career. Subsequently, the more mature and not-so-impressionable Halperin, wrote Saint Foucault in which he almost makes a case for a ‘canonization’ of the French philosopher. In one specific Masculinity course he teaches at the University of Michigan he seems to be congruent with much of his earlier work. One of the questions he investigates is:
Just how are/can identities be acquired?
Halperin’s course on masculinities at the University of Michigan is called "How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation."
Here are two paragraphs taken from the course description:

'Just because you happen to be a gay man doesn't mean that you don't have to learn how to become one. Gay men do some of that learning on their own, but often we learn how to be gay from others, either because we look to them for instruction or because they simply tell us what they think we need to know, whether we ask for their advice or not.

At the core of gay experience there is not only identification but disidentification. Almost as soon as I learn how to be gay, or perhaps even before, I also learn how not to be gay. I say to myself, 'Well, I may be gay, but at least I'm not like that!' Rather than attempting to promote one version of gay identity at the expense of others, this course will investigate the stakes in gay identifications and disidentifications, seeking ultimately to create the basis for a wider acceptance of the plurality of ways in which people determine how to be gay.'

I generally tend to think that at the core of any experience there is not only identification but disidentification as well. Ergo, to apply this way of thinking only to gender and time-specific gender and gendered identities oozes some measure of essentialism. To me, at least.

If there is indeed a plurality of ways in which people ‘determine’ how to be, wouldn’t that presuppose a shifting from the notion that identities are fixed?

Also, I got to thinking about his How To Do a History of Homosexuality in which he seems to criticize other scholars who, according to him, tend to 'reduce the history of sexuality to a mere history of sexual classifications instead of a history of human subjectivity itself.'
Hm.
And then there's the syllabus.
Read the full text here.
What do you think?

graph: book jacket of halperin's how to do a history of homosexuality

Gloria Steinem Speaks Re: the Presidential Race, Gender, and Race

Gloria Steinem's blog today in the NY Times is about race, gender perceptions, females, and the presidential race. Incidentally, I could have picked a more recent picture of Steinem, but this is too good not to feature here.
Steinem discusses Clinton's femaleness and Obama's race and how they are viewed and read generally by the voting public.
She observes:

'So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.'

I am of the opinion that attitudes toward gender, work performance vis-a-vis sex/gender have shifted considerably in modern times and this kind of shift seems traceable in pop culture, modern literature, cinema, et al. I hope that this instinct I am speaking of here is soundly informed and that it reflects a more general attitudinal shift re: sex/gender and race. I am simply reacting to Steinem's piece which does come across a tad dated to me.

But I also see Steinem's point in that she is referring to a general voters' mentality. Again, how she chooses to 'read' this mentality could be a tad problematic but she seems to make her point clearly enough. Read more here.

Stanley Fish Tackles the Humanities: Will They Save Us?

Stanley Fish contributed a thought-provoking piece on the 'use' of the Humanities.
I have often heard questions like, 'so, Humanities, eh? What do they DO, exactly?' My good friend, Dimitri, himself an engineer, tends to ask me questions of this kind. Almost unequivocally I answer with a question first, 'what do you mean DO? Contextualize 'do' first.' And as I do so, I have a 'je ne comprend pas' look stamped on my face. Since when is an entire field up for questioning?!

I understand that in our times things tend to be viewed as reified commodities and that most people have a need to quantify the actual 'value' of something. But then one treads on strange interpretation territories, i.e., how one defines 'value' might not correspond with others' takes.

I was happy to read Stanley Fish's bit on the Humanities and how he explores its 'use' rhetorically. Here are two chosen paragraphs from the post:

'Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said – even when it takes the form of Kronman’s inspiring cadences – diminishes the object of its supposed praise.'

Indeed, this is not an answer problem, but rather a question problem. And, as noted, 'justification...confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance.
What do you think?

Read the full blog by Fish here.

graph per ny times