Political masculinities in Europe: New definitions, methods and approaches

If you are a PhD candidate or post-doctoral researcher and your research focuses on masculinities in the political arena in a European context, join us for an exciting summer school this August.

We offer a week of workshops, lectures, seminars, panel discussions and (peer group) tutoring, introducing you to and discussing the analytical merits of the category “political masculinities”.

You will be taught by and working with renowned international researchers, such as Jeff Hearn (Örebro, Sweden), Ov Cristian Norocel (Helsinki, Finland/Brussels, Belgium) and Niels Spierings (Nijmegen, Netherlands) in the fields of politics and masculinities with backgrounds in masculinity studies, sociology, political science and cultural studies.

Political Masculinities

The role of masculinity has been widely explored in a great number of political contexts, such as modern nation building, colonialism and foreign politics, elections, processes of peace building and development, the workings of academic disciplines themselves such as International Relations and others.

We define “political masculinity” as encompass(ing) any kind of masculinity that is constructed around, ascribed to and/or claimed by political players. These shall be individuals or groups of persons who are part of or associated with the political domain, i.e. professional politicians, party members, members of the military as well as citizens and members of political movements claiming or gaining political rights. (Starck and Sauer 2014, 6)

However, this definition has so far neither been challenged nor developed any further, nor have the concept and its analytical merits across academic disciplines been discussed. The summer school aims at redressing this lack of a theoretical framework.