Find a Title
The University of North Carolina Press
432 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 21 illus., notes, bibl.
Gender and American Culture
A History of White College Fraternities
Here is the first book to recount the full history of white college fraternities in America. Nicholas Syrett traces these organizations from their days in antebellum all-male schools to the sprawling modern-day college campus, paying special attention to how fraternity brothers have defined masculinity over the course of their 180-year history.
Based on extensive research at twelve different schools and analyzing at least twenty national fraternities, The Company He Keeps explores the formation of what Syrett calls "fraternal masculinity." He describes how men have gained prestige and respect, especially from other men, by being masculine. Many factors--such as class, religiosity, race, sexuality, athleticism, intelligence, and recklessness--have contributed to particular versions of fraternal masculinity at different times. Whatever the criteria, Syrett demonstrates the ways that fraternity brothers' masculinity has had consequences for other students on campus as well, not just through exclusion from the organizations themselves but often from college life more broadly. He argues that fraternity men have often proved their masculinity by using their classmates as foils.
The book also investigates the culture of sexual exploitation that had made its home in college fraternities by the 1920s. Syrett offers explanations for the origins of this phenomenon and why it persists. He also recounts the hidden history of gay men in college fraternities from the early twentieth
century onwards.
Readers will find in The Company He Keeps not only an engaging history of white college fraternities, but also an insightful account of the evolution of a much more widespread culture of youthful and sexually aggressive masculinity.
"Careful, convincing, and well grounded in many primary sources. . . . Highly readable."
--History News Network
"Long shrouded in baroque mystery, the collegiate fraternity has never before been the subject of such a clear, sensible, and grounded historical study. Nicholas Syrett's meticulous research draws back the curtain on these bastions of white male privilege, without solely celebrating their camaraderie nor condemning the cold cruelties on which it has historically rested."--Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America: A Cultural History
"This is a well-researched and often provocative look at the changing role that fraternities have played on American campuses during two centuries of college life."
--Paula Fass, author of The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s
"The Company He Keeps is a study about broad themes and trends over time in American culture, seen through the lens of fraternity life and through the desires and drives of a particular (important) segment of the American population. I became engrossed in its pages and found myself both thinking and talking about Syrett's arguments. His attention to social anxiety, to competition, to the values of capitalism and business, and to masculinity is particularly intriguing. A thoroughly engaging book."--Diana Turk, author of Bound by a Mighty Vow: Sisterhood and Women's Fraternities, 1870-1920
Cloth: $30.00
© 2009 The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
How to Order |
Make a Gift |
Privacy
