Professor David Buchbinder
School of Communication & Cultural Studies
Curtin University of Technology
D.Buchbinder@curtin.edu.au
David holds the Chair in Masculinities Studies at Curtin University of Technology. He has published two books as well as many articles in the area of masculinities studies, and is currently working on a third book. A member of the Department of Communication and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Media, Society and Culture (Division of Humanities), Professor Buchbinder teaches in the fields of literary and cultural studies, in which he has published one book and a number of articles.
Object or Ground? The Male Body as Fashion Accessory
Since the 1980s the male body, partly or wholly naked, has become foregrounded in the public sphere as a means to sell a number of products, from toiletries to insurance. Moreover, the body in question is of a specific type: youthful, muscular and depilated. The spectacularisation of this body raises questions about whether it is simply an object to be seen, admired and/or desired (together with the product advertised) and perhaps emulated as a sort of fashion accoutrement; whether it should be seen rather as the ground on which a range of historico-cultural preoccupations and anxieties are themselves inscribed; or whether this body moves continually between the roles of object and ground, destabilising notions of subjectivity and objectivity, essence and construct.
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