"The collection opens with three essays that provide broad and thorough introductions to key developments in the field [of masculinity studies] over time. Stefan Horlacher’s introduction, entitled “Configuring Masculinity”, is a succinct exploration of just what is and what might be this “new field of research” called masculinity studies. For those new to the field, Horlacher’s review of the field’s development serves as an important first step toward future studies; for those who’ve been at it a while, it serves as a good take on just how we can make this field matter, not just to literary studies, but to all inquiries into the humanities. […] We know by now that masculinity has moved beyond a single, stable benchmark against which all male behavior can be read. What we don’t know is what’s next, and the essays here help us envision the possibilities of what the future of masculinities studies might hold. What all of these readings do, to various degrees, can be applied to the reading of any work of literature, and I would suggest other works of art as well. They teach us how to note and interpret the many visions and versions of masculinity that we come upon as we move through the business of making sense and lessons out of whatever reading and interpreting we may do.” - Fred Gardaphe, Queens College/CUNY, in: Culture, Society & Masculinities 8.1 (2016), pp. 82-84
"This set of essays is ideal for readers who wish to gain new interpretative methodologies to reading literary texts.” - Georgina Bozsó, University of Debrecen, HU, in: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 23.2 (2017), pp. 440-444

Stefan Horlacher is Chair of English Literature at Dresden University of Technology. He has published widely on English Literature from the Renaissance to the present, on Gender and Masculinity Studies, Media Studies, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and theories of the comic.