Karen Downing, ‘Regency masculinity? Napoleonic War veterans and explaining change in the history of masculinities’ in Negotiating Masculinities and Modernity in the Maritime World, 1815–1940, ed Karen Downing, Johnathan Thayer and Joanne Begiato (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
Abstract: Historians of British masculinities find it difficult to explain change over time. While their use of the labels ‘Georgian’ and ‘Victorian’ masculinity elide the contemporaneous multiplicities and diachronically enduring characteristics of manliness, they do express observable differences in discussion and debates about, and representations of, masculinity between the late eighteenth century and the mid-nineteenth century. ‘Regency’ is often used to describe the period of change between the two eras, but there is little comparable use of the term ‘Regency masculinity’. This chapter offers naval veterans of the Napoleonic wars as examples of ‘Regency masculinity’, figures of transitional masculinities, that elucidate how changes in ideas of manly behaviour, representations, and expectations, occur in response to conjunctures of historical circumstance, material necessity, and personal aspiration.
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Karen Downing, Johnathan Thayer and Joanne Begiato, ‘Introduction: A sailor’s progress?’ in Negotiating Masculinities and Modernity in the Maritime World, 1815–1940, ed Karen Downing, Johnathan Thayer and Joanne Begiato (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
Abstract: This collection offers an international scope both in terms of contributors and the thematic content of the chapters, covering maritime masculinity in Britain, America, North Pacific, Finland, Germany. It aims to open up an international dialogue in maritime and masculinity studies which are both typically more strongly positioned within national contexts. The volume begins with the enduring image of romantic, heroic veterans of the Napoleonic wars, takes us through challenges to masculinities created by encounters with other races, ethnicities and cultures, and with technological change, shifting geopolitical and cultural contexts, and ends with portrayals of threatened and fragile masculinities at the beginning of the twentieth century. In doing so, this edited collection shows that maritime masculinities (ideals, representations and the seamen themselves) could be highly visible despite the fact that so much of what went on in the Navy and merchant marine was over the horizon at sea or geographically marginalised in sailortown districts that were removed from the great metropolitan centres. The chapters in this collection explore these volatile sites in which men negotiated the tensions of masculinities with civilisation, race, technology, patriotism, citizenship, and respectability from the beginning of the eighteenth century up to the second World War.
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Fiona Jenkins, Marian Sawer, Karen Downing, ‘Introduction: The gender lens and innovation in the social sciences’ in How gender can transform the social sciences: Innovation and impact, ed Marian Sawer, Fiona Jenkins, Karen Downing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
Abstract: This collection turns a spotlight on gender innovation in the social sciences. Eighteen short and accessibly written case studies show how feminist and gender perspectives bring new concepts, theories and policy solutions. Scholars in five disciplines– economics, history, philosophy, political science and sociology – demonstrate how paying attention to gender can sharpen the focus of the social sciences, improve the public policy they inform and change the way we measure things. Gender innovation provokes rethinking at both the core and the margins of established disciplines, sometimes developing new fields of research that chart new territory. These case studies celebrate the contribution of feminist and gender scholars and the impact of their work within and beyond the social sciences.