Correction

This article refers to:

Masculinity as cruel optimism

Article title: Masculinity as Cruel Optimism

Authors: Jonathan A.Allan

Journal: NORMA

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2017.1312949

Some sentences in the first paragraph of the conclusion section were lost when the article was first published online. The sentences have been now added and republished online. The revised paragraph is also shown below:

Conclusion:

This article, thus, set out to argue: masculinity is governed by a fear of losing masculinity and that masculinity itself becomes the problem to which we must attend. In this article, therefore, as scholars before me have noted (Connell, 1995; Kimmel, 1996), masculinity is seldom achievable; that is, boys and men always fail at masculinity. One can never be masculine enough. Masculinity is very carefully governed and enforced. However, what remains uncertain is how critical theory is to think about and through this failure. What might affect theory, the goal of this special issue, offer to the study of masculinity? Throughout this article, I argued that masculinity is cruel optimism, which is to say, “the condition of maintaining an attachment to a significantly problematic object” (Berlant 2011, 24). This article set out to think affectively about this very question. Accordingly, I argued that critical studies of men and masculinities needs to engage with the “affective turn” (Clough and Halley, 2007) that has been undertaken in various subfields of gender studies.