Schools

SBU to Launch Academic Center, Masters Program in Masculinity Studies

Gender studies center will open in the fall of 2013.

A startup grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will help Stony Brook launch a new gender studies program later this year – one that focuses on men and masculinity studies, the university announced Monday.

The new Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities will be funded by the foundation's two-year, $300,000 grant with additional support from Stony Brook University and private donors. The Master of Arts program in masculinity studies, which the university describes as the first of its kind, will begin in 2017.

According to Michael Kimmel, the distinguished professor of sociology who will be leading the new academic center, it will address an emerging discipline that is interdisciplinary and international in nature.

"Much work on masculinities uses the prisms of feminist theory, multiculturalism and queer theory, and discussions of differences among men (by race, class, sexuality, age, religion, region and the like) are just as salient as discussions of similarities and differences between women and men," Kimmel said in a statement.

The Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities is expected to host monthly seminars as well as large forums called "Challenging Conversations" that will address hot topics such as prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography and more. A three-day international conference is planned for 2015 at Stony Brook's Manhattan campus.

“I intend it to be a place where that dialogue between researchers and practitioners, between academics and activists, will be the central defining feature,” said Kimmel, who also edits the SBU-based journal Men and Masculinities. “It is a conversation that I find too rare on both sides of that divide: academics who know little about what is happening on the ground, and activists who think they are inventing the wheel each time they develop a new program.”


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