193 Josep M. Armengol-Carrera, Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, Sociology Department, SUNY (State University of New York) at Stony Brook. Correspondence concerning this article should be address to Josep M. Armengol-Carrera, Beatriu de Pinós Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, Sociology Department, SUNY (State University of New York) at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4356. Electronic mail: jarmenca@hotmail.com The Journal of Men’s Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3, Fall 2009, 193-209. © 2009 by the Men’s Studies Press, LLC. All rights reserved. http://www.mensstudies.com jms.1703.193/$14.00 • DOI: 10.3149/jms.1703.193 • Url: http://dx.doi.org/10.3149/jms.1703.193 Of Friendship: Revisiting Friendships between Men in American Literature JOSEP M. ARMENGOL-CARRERA SUNY (State University of New York) at Stony Brook Traditionally, scholarship on men and masculinities has promoted the associ- ation of masculinity with emotional repression and containment. Moreover, emotional expressivity by men, when acknowledged, has usually been con- sidered either apolitical or even politically conservative. However, this article attempts to question such traditional (mis)conceptions by exposing not only the existence but also the subversive political potential of men’s emotions in American culture and literature. In particular, the study posits that strong emo- tional attachments between men could contribute not only to enriching men’s emotional lives but also, and above all, to erasing sexism, racism, and homo- phobia from our societies. It is argued, therefore, that men’s friendships with other men might play a fundamental role in promoting greater social equality, as American literature illustrates. Keywords: masculinity, emotions, friendship, politics, American literature Traditionally, the world of emotions has been associated with women and femi- ninity. Since masculinity has traditionally been defined as the opposite of femininity (Segal, 1997), men and masculinities have been usually defined as rational and un- emotional. Thus, a large number of masculinity scholars associate masculinity with emotional control (Shamir & Travis, 2002). It is often claimed that men are actually vic- tims as well of patriarchal masculinity, because it inhibits expression of men’s inner emotional selves and thus makes them prone to multiple psychological and even phys- ical problems. Indeed, much contemporary research on men’s emotions seems to have been directly influenced by the men’s studies literature of the seventies, which, in line