Writing
Erick DuPree’s blog explores the intersections of anthropology, literature, and material culture to illuminate how identity, ritual, and meaning take shape across time and tradition. Blending scholarship with storytelling, these essays invite readers to engage critically and imaginatively with the cultural forces that shape both personal and collective experience.
What Exactly Does It Mean To Be “Man Enough?”
A personal essay exploring fatherlessness, gender norms, and queer identity—unpacking what it means to be “man enough” in a world that punishes softness and fetishizes masculinity.
Review of Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle by Michael Andor Brodeur
Swole is more than just a book for men, and certainly more than a book about the gym. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt out of place in their own skin, or questioned the messages the world sends about how a body should look.
He-Man to Hypermasc: The Cultural Mythology of 1980s Boyhood
How 1980s icons like He-Man and G.I. Joe shaped hypermasculine ideals for boys—and how queer kids navigated shame, fantasy, and survival under the shadow of these powerful myths.