Reading the Male Gaze in Literature and Culture (eBook)

James D. Bloom is Professor of English at Muhlenberg College, USA. His books include Hollywood Intellect (2009), Gravity Fails (2003) and The Literary Bent (1997). His essays and reviews have appeared in American Literary History, Contemporary Literature, the European Journal of American Culture, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Style, the New York Times Book Review, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Creem.

Acknowledgements 7
Contents 8
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Shelf Life of a Meme 9
The Title 9
Past Mastery: Choices and Impediments 12
The Post-Mulvey Conversation 13
The Apprentice 15
The Material and the Setup 16
Chapter 2 Coming Clean: Readings, Confessions, Shortcuts 18
After and Before 23
Avant La Lettre 26
Invokers and Provokers 27
Humanities Gazer 28
The Uphill Cul-De-Sac—Pardon My French 35
Romantic Gestures? 37
Rock of Gazes 42
Clowning vs. Gazing 50
The Limits of Reciprocity 53
As The Gazer Ages 55
Joint Custody 57
Attention/At-Ease 66
Chapter 3 American Fiction: Gaze Canon 70
The Farmer’s Daughter, the Seamstress and the Papist 70
From not Pretty to Pretty 75
Women Kept and Unkept 80
Let Gertrude Stein Call You Sweetheart 93
Beauty out of Place—Gazing Across the Color Line 103
Struggles Continue 112
Body Shopping 120
Letting Go 122
“Unaesthetic” 123
Chapter 4 Scopes on Trial 126
Men and Their Equipment 126
Gentlemen 133
In an Emergency 135
“What Maidens Loth?” 137
Opposing Selves 142
Objects 145
From Windows 0.0 to Kaleidoscopy 151
Warehouse Eyes 159
Chapter 5 American Fiction After Mulvey 171
Chapter 6 British Invasions Post-Bar Mitzvah 195
London Calling 197
Birdwatching and Stargazing 205
Works Cited 209
Index 224