anti-manliness – CfP

Call for Papers – 52 (1/2026) – manliness/un-manliness/anti-manliness

Submission deadline: 30 January, 2025

The critique of patriarchy, prevalent in contemporary humanistic discourses, has relegated the notion of masculinity to the status of a historical anachronism identified with most of the dramas of the contemporary world, from corporate-military imperialism to objectification of women to environmental devastation. Fuelled by constantly reproduced media stereotypes, masculinity/manliness has become synonymous with innate aggression, programmatic dominance, perpetual competition, ubiquitous rationalism, and the relentless need for optimisation and efficiency legitimised by the measurable successes of the Western model of socio-technological existence. And when views that challenge masculine identity built on these stereotypes come to the fore, the identity in question is almost immediately perceived in terms of a new collocation – a crisis of masculinity and of manliness.

In this context, the question arises as to what crisis we are really talking about and whether the somewhat apocalyptic tone of this colloquialism does not herald the demise of the historical concept of manliness inasmuch as it proclaims the birth of its new versions and variations inspired, for instance, by feminist and gender studies, not to mention the output of men’s studies itself? Will the separation of masculinity/manliness from patriarchy – if at all possible – not be an act of ultimate liberation from the yoke of a system historically created by its own victims? And if so, will we still be able to talk about the (however radically redefined) concept of masculinity/manliness without falling into the trap of a new stereotyping supported by new paradigms of anti-patriarchal correctness? Won’t the disintegration of traditional masculine identity complicate, or even question, the sense of the use of the concept itself, forcing us to create a new nomenclature, or perhaps even a new language along the lines of the second-wave concept of écriture féminine?

Yet the corrosion of historical canons of masculinity which we are, after all, already witnessing today, is not taking place in an academic vacuum. Non-patriarchal models of masculinity/manliness remain highly controversial not only among representatives of traditionally conservative circles, but also among supporters of all forms of gender liberalisation, which is of course hardly surprising. Redefinition of the socio-existential contours of any gender inevitably entails a redefinition of almost all social relations and the very communities built within these contours. Also those communities for whom more traditional forms of social coexistence constitute a consciously chosen component of their identity.

As a critical take on the issues outlined above, we invite submissions inspired by the following:

cultural constructs of masculinity/manliness
masculinities beyond patriarchy
masculinism / feminism
masculinity/manliness in non-heteronormative discourses
representations of masculinity/manliness in cinema/literature/art
male bodies – canons of beauty and ugliness
crises of masculinity/manliness / crisis of a man
masculinity/manliness as performance
spaces of masculinity/manliness
faces of (un)manliness / anti-manliness
language(s) of masculinity/manliness
masculinity in education
masculinity/manliness in non-Western cultures
chauvinism, sexism, misogyny
masculinity in the context of the Anthropo- and Capitalocene
psychoanalysis of masculinity

Articles, including all required metadata, should be submitted through the OJS system by 30 January, 2025, in accordance with all the guidelines available in the “About” and “Authors’ guidelines” sections.

Articles should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words. Please submit your work via the Er(r)go Online Journal System.

Each submission must include:

1) Author’s First Name and Family Name
2) Author’s Institutional Affiliation
3) Author’s ORCID Number
4) Author’s Website Address
5) Author’s Email Address
6) Physical Address for Delivery of Complimentary Hard Copy (if desired)
7) Title of the Article
8) Abstract of the Article (250-350 words)
9) Biographical Note on the Author (250-350 words)
10) Keywords
11) Disciplines Represented (see [Wikipedia’s Outline of Academic Disciplines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines)
12) Text of the Article, formatted according to the Chicago Style (length: 4,000-6,000 words)
13) Bibliography of Works Cited, formatted according to the Chicago Style
14) Print Quality Images (min. 300 dpi)
15) Permissions or Licenses for all Copyrighted Visual Material

IMPORTANT: Incomplete submissions will be automatically rejected.

Er(r)go. Theory – Literature – Culture, is an Open Access, free of charge, Scopus-listed, ranking journal of the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Our journal has been granted 100 points as a result of the parametric evaluation carried out by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2021. As of 2016, Er(r)go is also listed in the European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIH+) as well as in the Index Copernicus Journal Master List with the impact factor ICV 2023 = 116.12. Since 2020, it is also indexed in the Elseviere Scopus database and in the EBSCO database.