Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English and Writing Studies

Department

English

First Reader/Committee Chair

Garascia, Ann

Abstract

This thesis establishes a multi-genre framework of various theories from different academic fields that is then used to view the multimodal elements of punk and hardcore music performances. The analyses are tailored towards the dissection of traditional masculinity with the goal of constructing masculine avatars that are prosocial and moral. Reworking traditional masculinity is a portion of the larger fight for social reform that is taken up within the field of the humanities. Existing critical approaches to masculinity often establish the need for a rewriting of normative masculinity in society but often do not provide methods for such a rewriting. Here, reconstruction and deconstruction offer methods for creating prosocial forms of masculinity. To conduct this work, I view punk-adjacent musical performances as a window into their communities and analyze how forms of masculinity are represented within. While researching and analyzing the artefactual subjects within this work, I found that the dismantling of traditional masculinity must occur within communities where it is prevalent, such as punk and hardcore communities, before substantial masculine changes can materialize within wider society.

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