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Italian American Masculinities, Fred L. Gardaphé

Publications and Research

The Italian American man is the result of the interaction of centuries of Italianate masculinities coming into contact with the variety of masculinities that have come to make up the American man. The results of these encounters are more varied and complex than the stereotypical art and media representations of the Latin lover, the brutish bully, and the flashy gangster that have dominated American culture since the early 1920s. Over the years, theories of masculinity have all fallen short of describing the plurality of possiblities of Italian American masculinity, and in fact provide us with nothing more than categories that …