Jonathan A. Allan

Jonathan A. Allan is Canada Research Chair and Professor in the Department of English, Drama, and Creative Writing at Brandon University. Dr. Allan is an editor for Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities 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 a 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. 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. This book seeks to ask 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: The Foreskin in Focus (University of Regina Press). 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.

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
  • Testicular Health and Cancer
  • 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

“‘It’s OK…I’ve had a vasectomy, so you’ll still be a virgin!’ Vasectomy Cartoons in Playboy.” Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association. Philadelphia, USA. November 9-11, 2023.

Publications

Books and Edited Collections

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.
• “Softcore Romance: On Naked Heroes and Beefcakes in Popular Romance Novels.” Porn Studies. 
• “Preputial Phantasies in Lisa Braver Moss’s The Measure of His Grief.” Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook.

Select Publications (since 2020)

• “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.
• “Healing Toxic Masculinity in Popular Romance Novels.” New Frontiers in Popular Romance. Ed. Susan Fanetti. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2022. 17-30
• “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)
• “‘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)
• “Grounded in Culture: Reflections on Sitting Outside the Circle in Community-Based Research with Indigenous Men.” Qualitative Health Research 30.14 (2020): 2343-2350. (Co-authored: Candice M. Waddell, Rachel V. Herron, Frank Tacan, Jason Gobeil, Margaret de Jager, Jonathan A. Allan, Kerstin Roger)
• “Mourning and Sentimental Heroism in Maureen Child’s Lost in Sensation.” Journal of Popular Culture 53.5 (2020): 1160-1178.
• “‘Talk about it’: Changing Masculinities and Mental Health in Rural Places.” Social Science & Medicine 258 (2020) 1-7. (Co-authored: Rachel Herron, Mairo Ahmadu, Jonathan A. Allan, Candice Waddell, and Kerstin Roger)
• “Gender and Sexuality.” Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction, eds. Jayashree Kamblé, Eric Murphy Selinger, and Hsu-Ming Teo. Routledge, 2020. 428-453.
• “The Foreskin Aesthetic, or Ugliness Reconsidered.” Men and Masculinities 23.3-4 (2020): 558-578.
• “Lady Chatterley’s Green World: A Frygian Reading of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée 47.2 (2020): 143-157.

Courses

• 30.250: The Long Novel
• 30.338: Latin American Literature (in Translation)
• 30.348: The Joy of Text: Literature and Sexuality (to be taught in 2023-2024)
• 30.383: Between Men: Literature and Masculinities
• 36.261: Diverse Masculinities