Jonathan A. Allan
Jonathan A. Allan is Canada Research Chair in Men and Masculinities and Professor in the Department of English, Drama, and Creative Writing and Gender and Women’s Studies at Brandon University. Dr. Allan is an editor for Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities, interim editor of Boyhood Studies, and Vice-President of the American Men’s Studies Association.
During his Canada Research Chair, Dr. Allan is working on the critical study of men and masculinities in a variety of spaces in the social sciences and the humanities. Dr. Allan is interested in the ways in which masculinity is lived, enacted, and embodied in everyday life.
His current research project is titled, Men, Masculinity, and the Procreative Realm, for which he received a SSHRC Insight Grant. One of the research outcomes from this project, Men, Masculinities, and Infertility (Routledge 2022), is an open-access book-length study of cultural representations of men’s infertility. Drawing on ideas of storytelling, this book explores how stories of infertility are told across popular fiction, canonical fiction, men’s memoirs of infertility, and film and television.
Dr. Allan is currently working on a second outcome from the SSHRC Insight Grant, Snip Snap (under contract with UBC Press), a book-length study of vasectomy. Over the course of this book he considers the history of vasectomy, including how it was punitive, then tied to eugenics, through to elective vasectomy, the mainstreaming of vasectomy, and the decline of vasectomy (and its resurgence following the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization). The goal is to provide a comprehensive study of the vasectomy that enables readers to think about what the vasectomy means and why it matters, while also understanding its complex and troubling history. Snip Snap asks timely questions about the vasectomy, access to vasectomy, and the challenges to vasectomy. This book thus contributes to the overarching goal of his research, which considers the role and responsibilities men have in the procreative realm.
Dr. Allan continues to research a host of other topics coming out of earlier research projects, most especially masculinity and in/fertility; masculinity and circumcision, including a forthcoming monograph titled, Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin (University of Regina Press, 2024). In this book, Dr. Allan provides an interdisciplinary study of the foreskin and circumcision. Instead of focusing on circumcision, Dr. Allan considers the foreskin, drawing on a wide-range of sources (from sex manuals and pregnancy books to policy documents and scientific studies), to understand how it is discussed, represented, and understood.
Dr. Allan’s future research will consider the history of anti-circumcision activism. In this project, he will draw on interviews and archival work to uncover the history and rise of anti-circumcision activism.
Research Areas:
- Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities
- Theories of Masculinity
- Masculinity and Popular Culture
- Fatherhood
- Men’s Reproductive and Sexual Health
- Circumcision and the Foreskin
- Infertility
- Vasectomy
- Testosterone
- Puberty
- Literary and Cultural Studies
- Affect, Psychoanalysis, and Feminist and Queer Theories
- Sexuality, Eroticism, Obscenity, Pornography, and Censorship
- The Novel
- Latin American Cinema
- Photography
Teaching Areas:
- Critical Studies of Men and Men and Masculinities
- Twentieth-Century Literature (esp. the Novel)
- Latin American Literature and Cultural Production
- Literary Theory and Criticism
Research Funding: Canada Research Chairs (2014-2024), Brandon University Research Committee (2014-2016; 2016-2018; 2017-2019, 2019-2021), Romance Writers of America (2015-2016), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2016-2018; 2018-2020; 2019-2023), Research Manitoba (2018-2020).
Upcoming Lectures
“An object of terror and delight”: Penile Reading in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland. 31st Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature. Grand Forks, North Dakota. April 12-13, 2024.
Publications
Books and Edited Collections
Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin. Regina: University of Regina Press (November 2024)
Men, Masculinities, and Infertilities. London: Routledge, 2022. Link.
Men, Masculinities, and Popular Romance. London: Routledge, 2020.
Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus. Regina: University of Regina Press, 2016; and, London: Zed Books, 2016. (Japanese translation appeared in 2018)
Virgin Envy: The (In)Significance of the Hymen. Regina: University of Regina Press, 2016; and, London: Zed Books, 2016. (with Cristina Santos and Adriana Spahr)
Inversions of Power and Paradox: Studies of Monstrosity. Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2012. (with Elizabeth Nelson).
Forthcoming Publications
- “The Spectre of Docking in Circumcision Debates.” Sexualities.
- “Seeking Smut: Collaborations between Researchers, Librarians, and Interlibrary Loans in the Study of Sexuality and Desire.” Porn Studies. (with Heather E. Tornblom)
- “‘Condoms Break. Birth Control Fails’: Heroes in the Procreative Realm and Jessica Scott’s Anything for You.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies.
Select Publications (since 2021)
- “Reading Foreskin Quarterly: Aesthetics as Argument Against Circumcision.” Journal of Men’s Studies 32.1 (2024): 178-196.
- “Reading Anti-Circumcision Activism in Clothed with the Sun: The Quarterly Journal of Clothes-Optional Living.” Journal of American Culture 46.4 (2023): 308-318.
- “Softcore Romance: On Naked Heroes and Beefcakes in Popular Romance Novels.” Porn Studies 10.3 (2023): 283-298.
- “Preputial Phantasies in Lisa Braver Moss’s The Measure of His Grief.” Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook 21.1 (2023): 51-61.
- “The Future of Historical Research in Popular Romance Studies.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 12 (2023): Online.
- “The Normal Foreskin: Puberty, Adolescence, and Growing Up.” Boyhood Studies 16.1 (2023): 1-17.
- “‘Husbands are Pregnant, Too!’: Caring Masculinities in Pregnancy Books for Men.” Journal of Men’s Studies 31.2 (2023): 282-302
- “Against Typologies: Affect and Masculinity Studies.” The Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect. Ed. Todd W. Reeser. Routledge, 2023. 43-54.
- “‘Impossibly Erotic Things’: On Men’s Underwear in Brief Encounters by Suzanne Forster.” Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 9.2 (2022): 207-222.
- “‘The Easy Way Out’: Vasectomy in the Sociopornographic Imagination.” Performing the Penis: Phalluses in 21st Century Cultures. Eds. Meredith Jones and Evelyn Callahan. London: Routledge, 2022. 65-80.
- “One Sexy Daddy: Desirable Dad Bods and Popular Romance Novels.” Fashionable Masculinities: Queers, Pimp Daddies, and Lumbersexuals. Eds. Vicki Karaminas, Adam Geczy, and Pamela Church Gibson. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. 83-95.
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“Healing Toxic Masculinity in Popular Romance Novels.” New Frontiers in Popular Romance. Ed. Susan Fanetti. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2022. 17-30
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“A Collaborative Multi-Method Approach to Evaluating Indigenous Land-Based Learning with Men.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 21: 1-8. (Candice M. Waddell, Jason Gobeil, Frank Tacan, Marti Ford, Rachel V. Herron, Jonathan A. Allan, Madeleine L. Kruth, Stephanie Spence)
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“‘A Most Unlikely Hero’: Disability and Masculinity in Popular Romance Novels.” The Male Body in Representation, eds. Carmen Dexl and Silvia Gerlsbeck. Palgrave MacMillan. 215-235.
- “Rural Eroticism in Marcos Zimmermann’s Desnudos sudamericanos.” Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinoamericana 50.2 (2021): 49-67.
- “Self-Improvement as Proof of Love in The Bromance Book Club.” The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love. Ed. Ann Brooks. London: Routledge, 2022. 162-172.
- “Green Your Groin: Sustainability, Men’s Underwear, and the Wild.” Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 8.1-2 (2021): 167-183.
- “Identifying places that foster mental health and well-being among rural men.” Health & Place 71 (2021). (co-authored: Mairo Ahmadu, Rachel V. Herron, Jonathan A. Allan, Candice M. Waddell)
- “Exploring Ageing and Time as Resources in Men’s Mental Health Experiences.” Ageing and Society (2021): 1-15. (co-authored: Kerstin Roger, Rachel V. Herron, Mairo Ahmadu, Jonathan A. Allan, Candice M. Waddell).
- “Healing Journeys: Indigenous Men’s Reflections on Resources and Barriers to Mental Wellness.” Social Science and Medicine, 270 (co-authored: Candice M. Waddell, Margaret de Jager, Jason Gobeil, Frank Tacan, Rachel V. Herron, Jonathan A. Allan, Kerstin Roger)
- “Circumcision Debates in Sexology Magazine (1934-1975).” Journal of Men’s Studies 29.3 (2021): 354-372.
- “‘I never wanted my children to see their father the way I’ve seen mine’: Caring masculinities and fathering on the Prairies.” NORMA: International Journal for Masculinities Studies 16.1 (2021): 23-37. (co-authored: Jonathan A. Allan, Rachel V. Herron, Mairo Ahmadu, Candice M. Waddell, and Kerstin Roger)
Courses
- 30.202: Diverse Voices
- 30.250: The Long Novel
- 30.338: Latin American Literature (in Translation)
- 30.348: The Joy of Text: Literature and Sexuality (Spring 2024)
- 30.383: Between Men: Literature and Masculinities
- 30.401: Censorship and Obscenity (to be taught in Fall 2024)
- 36.261: Diverse Masculinities (to be taught in Fall 2024)