The (In)Visibility of Men in the U.S.-American Quilt World: Selected Popular Quilt Fiction

This book investigates men and quiltmaking, an under-researched part of the
U.S.-American quilt world. It analyzes the connection between the genderedness of
material practice and White masculinity concepts in the U.S.-American mainstream.
The examination of the construct of masculinity in two quilt novel series from the
2010s aims to answer the question of whether the characters’ attitudes towards
quiltmaking and quilts as objects provide information about change in heterosexual
gender relations and whether the fictional masculinities in Wanda E. Brunstetter’s or
Ann Hazelwood’s novels promote new approaches to manhood. Due to the paucity of
scholarly work on contemporary quilt fiction, this book also contributes to the study
of a hybrid genre.

Rita Rueß-Stoll studied at Mainz University (Department of English and American
Studies as well as Department of Slavonic Languages and Literatures) and in Coventry,
England. She has earned a doctoral degree in American Studies from Marburg
University. She acquired her expertise in quiltmaking as a cultural practice in the US,
Britain, Canada, and Australia.