Volume 8 of Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies will include a special issue dedicated to “The War On Boys?“.

Guest editors: Máirtín Mac an Ghaill (Newman University, UK), Chris Haywood (Newcastle University, UK) and Jonathan A. Allan (Brandon University, Canada).

In 2013, Christina Hoff Sommers released a second edition of The War Against Boys, and shortly after, Michael Kimmel released Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era. Both of these books attest to a shift in perspective about masculinity, not just in the academy, but on the ground, in the city, in the classroom, in the boardroom, in the factory. Boys and men, we are told, are under attack. The University Campus has become a breeding ground for discussions of “men’s issues” and “men’s rights,” both of which often focus on the figure of the Boy who will become a Man in an inhospitable and feminizing world. Our intended special issue poses a narrow, but nonetheless open, question: How do we, as scholars of boyhood, masculinities, and gender, think about the “war on boys” and what does that “war” look like? How can critical perspectives including but not limited to intersectional feminist theories, critical race theory, crip theory and disability studies, and queer theory help us disentangle the remarkably complex and nuanced nature of boyhood in this war?

The full call for papers is at http://bit.ly/1fZgkLp
More on Thymos: http://bit.ly/REKA2m
Preliminary inquiries and abstracts are welcome. Full manuscripts are dueMarch 15, 2014.
APA-styled manuscripts should be sent to both AllanJ@brandonu.ca anddiederikjanssen@gmail.com