David D. Gilmore

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David D. Gilmore
Born1943 (age 82–83)
CitizenshipAmerican
Known forManhood in the Making, Misogyny, Monsters
Scientific career
FieldsAnthropology, Ethnology, Gender studies
InstitutionsStony Brook University
University of Pennsylvania
Rutgers University
University of Iowa
Columbia University

David D. Gilmore (born 1943) is an American anthropologist, non-fiction author and professor emeritus. He was Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.[1][2]

Gilmore became known above all for ethnographic work on Spain, particularly Andalusia, and for cross-cultural studies of masculinity, misogyny and conceptions of monsters. Among his best-known books are Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity, Misogyny: The Male Malady and Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors.[3][4][5]

Life and academic career

Gilmore is American and was born in 1943. In the 1970s he first taught at several American universities: at the University of Pennsylvania in the summers of 1975 and 1976, at Rutgers University in 1976, and in 1976–77 as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iowa. In 1977 he moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he was first Assistant Professor, then Associate Professor from 1980 and Professor of Anthropology from 1986, as well as chair of the Department of Anthropology.[1]

Gilmore was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University in 1984–85, and carried out his anthropological fieldwork in Spain.[1] In 1985 he received a research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project on land reform and rural revolts in nineteenth-century Spain; Aggression and Community and Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean are named as associated publications.[6] Stony Brook University's Emeritus Member List records him as an emeritus member in Anthropology.[2]

Research and work

Andalusia and Mediterranean ethnography

Gilmore's early monographs deal above all with the social and cultural order of rural Andalusia. The People of the Plain: Class and Community in Lower Andalusia appeared in 1980 with Columbia University Press and addresses class and community structures in lower Andalusia.[7] He continued this engagement in 1987 with Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture.[6]

In Carnival and Culture: Sex, Symbol, and Status in Spain, Gilmore examined the Andalusian carnival, in particular carnival songs and oral literature, interpreting them as expressions of social meanings, rituals and ambivalences.[8]

Masculinity and the gender order

Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity appeared in 1990 and is Gilmore's most influential cross-cultural work. He examines masculinity there not as a purely biological trait but as a status that many societies culturally produce and confirm. Yale University Press describes the book as the first cross-cultural study of manhood as an achieved status.[3]

Gilmore combined ethnographic case studies from various world regions with theoretical questions about the gender order, comparing conceptions of manhood in Mediterranean, Oceanic, South American, African and Asian societies.[3] Across nearly all the societies he surveyed, manhood appears as a precarious, culturally achieved status that boys must win through testing and ordeal, in contrast to a womanhood more often treated as an automatic consequence of biological maturation;[9] he names Tahiti and the Semai of Malaysia as exceptions where masculinity is not framed as a test.[3][10] He pursued a related empirical perspective in his essay Men and Women in Southern Spain: "Domestic Power" Revisited, on gender relations in southern Spanish communities.[11]

Misogyny and images of monsters

In Misogyny: The Male Malady, Gilmore examined the historical and anthropological manifestations of misogyny. The book offers a cross-cultural overview of misogynistic thought and interprets its prevalence partly in psychogenetic terms, but also in connection with social structures such as patrilineality, warfare, religious asceticism and gender segregation.[4]

Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors (2003) turned to the anthropological interpretation of monsters and figures of terror, examining which human fears, conflicts and fantasies are represented in the monster figures of different cultures.[5]

Reception

Manhood in the Making was also received outside professional anthropology. Publishers Weekly called the book a provocative and rewarding cross-cultural study and emphasized that Gilmore describes masculinity in many societies as a test to be passed or a status to be acquired.[10] Carnival and Culture was named an "Outstanding Academic Title" by Choice.[8]

The reception of Misogyny was mixed. Publishers Weekly described the work as a controversial and stimulating, but at the same time strongly academic, treatise. Critics noted, among other things, that Gilmore focuses mainly on heterosexual men and gives limited attention to the role of women in misogynistic orders.[12]

Publications

Monographs

  • David D. Gilmore (1980). The People of the Plain. Class and Community in Lower Andalusia. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-04754-8.
  • David D. Gilmore (1987). Aggression and Community. Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03811-8.
  • David D. Gilmore (1990). Manhood in the Making. Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-04646-5.
  • David D. Gilmore (1998). Carnival and Culture. Sex, Symbol, and Status in Spain. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07480-2.
  • David D. Gilmore (2001). Misogyny. The Male Malady. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812200324. ISBN 978-0-8122-3608-8.
  • David D. Gilmore (2003). Monsters. Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812203226. ISBN 0-8122-3702-1.

As editor

  • David D. Gilmore, ed. (1987). Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association. ISBN 978-0-913167-17-5.

Articles

  • David D. Gilmore (1990). "Men and Women in Southern Spain: "Domestic Power" Revisited". American Anthropologist. 92 (4): 953–970. doi:10.1525/aa.1990.92.4.02a00060.
  • David D. Gilmore (2012). "Bar Wars: Changing Geographies of Gender in Spain". Masculinities & Social Change. 1 (2): 87–113. doi:10.4471/mcs.2012.07.

References

  1. "Gilmore, David D." Encyclopedia.com. Gale / Writers Directory 2005. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  2. "Emeritus Member List" (PDF). Stony Brook University. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  3. "Manhood in the Making". Yale University Press. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  4. "Misogyny". University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  5. "Monsters". University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  6. "NEH Award FA-24051-84, David D. Gilmore". National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  7. "The People of the Plain". Columbia University Press. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  8. "Carnival and Culture". Yale University Press. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  9. David D. Gilmore (1990). Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-04646-5. An authentic femininity rarely involves tests or proof of action ... Rather, femininity is more often construed as a biological given.
  10. "Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity by David D. Gilmore". Publishers Weekly. 1990-03-01. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  11. David D. Gilmore (1990). "Men and Women in Southern Spain: "Domestic Power" Revisited". American Anthropologist. 92 (4): 953–970. doi:10.1525/aa.1990.92.4.02a00060.
  12. "Misogyny: The Male Malady by David D. Gilmore". Publishers Weekly. 2001-05-28. Retrieved 2026-05-07.