Oxbridge Men: British Masculinity and the Undergraduate Experience, 1850-1920

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Indiana University Press, May 4, 2005 - History - 344 pages

The mythic status of the Oxbridge man at the height of the British Empire continues to persist in depictions of this small, elite world as an ideal of athleticism, intellectualism, tradition, and ritual. In his investigation of the origins of this myth, Paul R. Deslandes explores the everyday life of undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge to examine how they experienced manhood. He considers phenomena such as the dynamics of the junior common room, the competition of exams, and the social and athletic obligations of intercollegiate boat races to show how rituals, activities, relationships, and discourses all contributed to gender formation. Casting light on the lived experience of undergraduates, Oxbridge Men shows how an influential brand of British manliness was embraced, altered, and occasionally rejected as these students grew from boys into men.

 

Contents

Constructing Superiority The University and the Undergraduate
17
The Transition from Boyhood to Manhood
48
Your Name and College Sir? Discipline and Authority
83
Those Horrid Holy Schools Examinations Competition and Masculine Struggle
121
Impervious to the Gentler Sex? Boat Races Heterosocial Relations and Masculinity
154
Girl Graduates and Colonial Students
184
Conclusion
229
NOTES
239
BIBLIOGRAPHY
287
INDEX
309
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About the author (2005)

Paul R. Deslandes is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Vermont.

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