Articles & Chapters

“Two Museums Take on Performative Masculinity, Looksmaxxing, Incels, and Other Macho Buzzwords That Don’t Belong There.”

May 12, 2026

Amanda van Hesteren: I Want to go Higher (still), 2023. ©Amanda Van Hesteren.

“Beyond the Manosphere: Masculinities Today” is a clickbait thirst-trap trend-driven symptom of everything wrong with museums entering the attention-economy game. The veneer of urgency and cultural relevance feels forced and already dated. It’s the tweedy teacher saying “No cap” two years too late—while also using it slightly wrong. I believe the kids call this “cringe.”

In Art in America.

Written by

Eugenie Brinkema

Eugenie Brinkema — an affiliated faculty member based in MIT Literature — researches violence, affect, sexuality, aesthetics, and ethics in texts ranging from the horror film to gonzo pornography, from the body of films dubbed “New European Extremism” to the viral media forms of terrorism. Professor Brinkema’s articles have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Angelaki, Camera Obscura, Criticism, differences, Discourse, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, The Journal of Visual Culture, LIT, Qui Parle, Somatechnics, and World Picture. Her first book, The Forms of the Affects, published with Duke University Press in 2014, won honorable mention in the Modern Language Association First Book Prize. Her 2022 book Life-Destroying Diagrams explores the theoretical potential of radical formalism in relation to horror and love.