What is central to understanding the essence of manhood? As a stage of life or period of being, manhood conveys subjective cultural depictions tending either toward a positive or negative inclination. Consider 19^th-century historian Alexis de Tocqueville’s warning against the State’s domineering powers toward manhood. He writes, the will of man first is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided—only for men to feel rarely forced to act yet constantly restrained from acting. Now in the modern period since the mid-twentieth century, the symbolic constructs surrounding manhood are as easily idealized as they are diminished. This predicament raises virtuous manhood to an unachievable locus or, alternatively, lowers man’s worth to a weakened societal station. Consider the tagline of the contemporary Barbie film, “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” How is one to understand manhood within their own being or in relation to man? This five-week course offers both men and women the historical, philosophical, and sociological frameworks of manhood through different media and writings of thoughtful contributors on the subject including Twain, Roosevelt, London, Wollstonecraft, and Bellah. Here the aim is to build a contemporary profile of the complexity of manhood as well as expand and heighten the learning experience. All voices and experiences are welcome.