'Innovative in its Butler inflected, psychoanalytically informed, queer approach to a diverse range of work from Mark Ravenhill to Franko B, Walsh's book is a must for those engaged in cultural and performative studies of 'male trouble'. The study takes the masculinity in crisis discourse from the nineties and beyond to new theoretical heights.'
- Elaine Aston, Professor of Contemporary Performance, Lancaster University, UK
'Of all the books published on men and masculinities in the new millennium, Fintan Walsh's is the most perceptive and persuasive. Impressive in its range and justified in its claims, Male Trouble is psychoanalytically inflected cultural studies of the highest order.'
- Calvin Thomas, Professor of English, Georgia State University, USA
'Probing in its analyses of its artistic sources, and unafraid in its interrogations of western masculinity, Walsh's Male Trouble is a unique and persuasively rigorous ethico-political intervention into the notion of 'masculinity in crisis', which belongs on every gender, performance or cultural studies scholar's bookshelf, and should also be required reading for graduate programs within these fields.' Theatre Survey
'I believe this book provides an original and insightful account and analysis of some perfor mance artists and playwrights' extreme responses to the so-called crisis of masculinity. It certainly deconstructs and debunks any notion that these performances and narratives are radical challenges to masculine power whether homosexual or heterosexual. Moreover, far from challenging the dominance of heteronormative values as might be expected when many of the artists are gay men, these performances reproduce the very masculine-feminine binary that sustains them..' Organization
'Male Trouble's most valuable contribution to the current field of dysfunctional masculinity studies lies however in its meticulous, convincing elaborations on the roles of sacrifice and submission within the matrix of reproduction of male identity and masculine power structures. Keenly attuned to dimensions of Christian sacrality and the psychic and aesthetic powers of the Christological narrative of sacrifice and submission, Walsh's close readings flesh out how hegemonic hetero-masculinities are reproduced through abject and performative submission to the more powerful male (God the father), through the figure of the suffering Christ as male submissive hero and son [ ] Masculine self-destruction begetting masculine self-deconstruction, in a seemingly endless circularity: perhaps it is a self-awareness of the discipline (masculinity studies) that makes the difference.' E-misferica
'This book is shocking in just the right way. Our relationships to bodies and the pain they experience is often distanced or used to induce empathy; however, Walsh illustrates the way in which pain becomes a marker of identity. It is not just the performance of violence, which is important, but the male body's ability to endure violence that confers masculinity [ ] Male Trouble is forward thinking in its ability to push masculinity studies past heteronormativity, and crisis management through performance...' International Feminist Journal of Politics