Aghacy (English and comparative literature, Lebanese American U., Beirut) explores masculinity in the Arabic literature of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq during the war-torn decades since the naksa. She considers gender not within strict sex role theory, which treats masculinity as a structure within a fixed biological mold, but rather as a complex phenomenon operating within particular historical settings and discursive formations. Women cannot be excluded from her study, she explains, because without femininity, there would be no masculinity, and to study either one necessarily focuses on the differences and interfaces with the other. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)