«Wooden Man»?

Daniel Matias holds a PhD in cultural studies from the New University of Lisbon. With a background in psychology, his research interests are located in the intersection of gender and postcolonial studies, with a focus on the formation of subjectivities and democratic masculinities. He works as a psychotherapist in private practice.

Acknowledgements – Foreword – Introduction: Coetzee, Gender and Ethics – Part I Masculinities – Becoming a Man – Part II Making Men: Places of Masculinities – Fathers of the Nation – Family Outcast – Art of One – Part III Making the Other: Alternatives to Hegemony – Race and Masculinities – “Shades and Shadows of Life”: Women in Dark Times – Queer Other – Conclusions – Bibliography – Index.

“This is a rigorous, and magnificently argued, reading of J. M. Coetzee’s trilogy <> Drawing on a complex set of theories from post-colonial studies and gender studies to psychoanalysis and philosophy, backed up by a sustained and well-informed historical contextualisation, Matias provides us with a renewed approach to a fascinating and complex author and some of his works, that combines rigorous scholarship with a pleasurable and entertaining reading.” —Manuela Ribeiro Sanches, Centre for Comparative Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon

“Daniel Matias provides a study that is highly innovative in many ways, the main one being that historical reality is understood as an integral part of scientific thinking, as it considers both the permanent and transformative aspects of time and space. The analysis of masculinities in Coetzee’s trilogy, as presented here, goes beyond the limitations of a simple case study pertaining to the post-colonial situation of South Africa; instead, it is an excellent acknowledgement of how a cultural outlook may provide an important recognition of the temporal dimensions and tensions of reality.” —Zília Osório de Castro, Full Professor (Jubilated) in History of Ideas; Director of the research unit Faces de Eva; Estudos sobre a Mulher and the Master’s Degree on Women’s Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the New University of Lisbon

“The obvious strength of this book is in its authentic originality and the cutting-edge, complex, nuanced reading of Coetzee’s texts, which have never been explored in quite this way before, enabling Daniel Matias to situate yet complicate the performance of white masculinity across time and place. Matias is adept at combining knowledge of the fine-grain and detailed particulars of textual interpretation with a broader concern with social and political dynamics, both nowadays essential for addressing the charged and volatile nature of gender belongings and identities, as they shift across time and place.” —Lynne Segal, Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department
of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London