About
Welcome to my page and blog!
A little about me:
I was born in 1947 in Mombasa, Kenya, and grew up — and was schooled — mostly there and in Perth, Western Australia, where my mother was from. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, in English literature and French civilisation, and went on to undertake postgraduate study at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, where I obtained both an MA and a PhD, in English literature, with a particular focus on Renaissance literature, especially drama.
In 1973 I rejoined my family, who by now had emigrated from Kenya to Western Australia, where I took up a teaching position at what was then called the Western Australian Institute of Technology. It has since transformed into Curtin University, where I have taught in the Department (formerly the School) of Communication and Cultural Studies, which is presently located within the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts. I hold a Personal Professorial Chair in Masculinities Studies, in which field I have published journal articles, book chapters and three books, the most recent of which, Studying Men and Masculinities, is due to be published this year (2012). However, masculinities studies is not the only string to my bow — I have written also on literature, film, television and culture generally (see bibliography below).
Publications:
Books
Contemporary Literary Theory and the Reading of Poetry (One chapter, on gender and poetry, by Barbara H. Milech). Melbourne: Macmillan Company of Australia, 1991. (Translated into Japanese.)
Masculinities and Identities. Interpretations. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 1994. (Italian translation: Sii uomo! Studio sulle identità maschili. Trans. Gasparo Magnifico. Ed. Susan Petrilli. Milan: Eterotopie-Mimesis, 2004.)
Performance Anxieties: Re-Producing Masculinity. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1998.
Studying Men and Masculinities. London and New York: Routledge, 2013.
Co-authored books
Milech, Barbara H., Brian Dibble, and David Buchbinder. A Directory of Women’s Studies in Australian Universities. Kingswood, NSW: University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1992.
Book chapters
“Adam by Auguste Rodin.” Acquisitions + Discourse. Ed. Robert Cook. Perth: Friends of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2005.
“Color and Movement: The Male Dancer, Masculinity and Race in Film.” Communicating Marginalized Masculinities: Identity Politics in TV, Film, and New Media. Eds. Ronald L. Jackson II and Jamie E. Moshin. Routledge Studies in Rhetoric and Communication. New York: Routledge, 2012. 65-79.
“From ‘Wizard’ to ‘Wicked’: Adaptation Theory and Young Adult Fiction,” in Contemporary Children’s Literature and Film: Engaging with Theory. Ed. Kerry Mallan and Clare Bradford. London: Palgrave Press, 2011. 127-46.
“‘Get ‘Em Off!’: Striptease and the Treacherous Male Body in The Full Monty.” What a Man’s Gotta Do? Masculinities in Performance. Eds. Adrian Kiernander, Jonathan Bollen and Bruce Parr. Armidale, NSW: CALLTS (Centre for Australian Language, Literature, Theatre and Screen Studies), 2006. 109-19. (First published in Spanish translation. See “¡Quítatelos!: Striptease y el cuerpo masculino traidor en The Full Monty,” 2001.)
“Grafting Cultures (on Juan Davila’s Grafting, 1989).” Writing the Collection, 25 June-8 August 2004. Ed. Kate Hamilton. Bentley, Western Australia: John Curtin Gallery-Curtin University of Technology, 2004.
“A Grand Illusion: Masculinity, “Passing” and Men’s Health.” Men, Masculinities and Health: Critical Perspectives. Eds. Steven Robertson and Brendan Gough. London: Palgrave Press, 2009. 30-47.
“Mateship, Gallipoli and the Eternal Masculine.” Representation, Discourse and Desire: Contemporary Australian Culture and Critical Theory. Ed. Patrick Fuery. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1994. 115-37.
“The Orangutan in the Library: The Comfort of Strangeness in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels.” Youth Cultures: Texts, Images, and Identities. Eds. Kerry Mallan and Sharyn Pearce. Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger, 2003. 169-82.
“‘Past and Future Tense’: The Crisis in Masculinity.” Future Imaginings: Sexualities and Genders in the New Millennium. Eds. Delys Bird, Wendy Were and Terri-Ann White. The Westerly Centre. Crawley, Western Australia: U of Western Australia P, 2003. 27-39.
“¡Quítatelos!: Striptease Y El Cuerpo Masculino Traidor En the Full Monty.” Masculino Plural: Construcciones De La Masculinidad. Eds. Carolina Sánchez-Palencia and Juan Carlos Hidalgo. Translation of “‘Get ‘Em Off!’: Striptease and the Treacherous Male Body in the Full Monty,” paper given at La(S) Retórica(S) de La Masculinidad Conference, Seville, 2000. Lleida: Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2001. 131-41.
“Reading the Masculine in Strictly Ballroom.” Gender and Texts: A Professional Development Package for Teachers. Eds. Wayne Martino and Chris Cook. Norwood, South Australia: English Teachers’ Association of Western Australia-Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Inc., 1998. 125-53.
“Unruly Age: Representing the Aging Male Body.” Manning the Next Millennium: Studies in Masculinities. Eds. Sharyn Pearce and Vivienne Muller. Bentley, Western Australia: Black Swan Press, 2002. 11-28. (Keynote paper at Manning the Millennium conference, Gold Coast, 2000.)
“Weaving Her Version: The Homeric Model and Gender Politics in Selected Poems.” Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms. Eds. Kathryn Van Spanckeren and Jan Garden Castro. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. 122-41.
“A Well-Shaped Man.” Health Matters: A Sociology of Illness, Prevention and Care. Eds. Alan Petersen and Charles Waddell. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1998. 353-63.
Journal articles
“Doing Masculinity.” Interpretations: Journal of the English Teachers’ Association of Western Australia. Special issue: Gender and Literacy. 28.2 (1995): 33-55.
“Editorial.” Southern Review: Special Issue on Masculinity 25.2 (1992): 135-40.
“Enter the Schlemiel: The Emergence of Inadequate or Incompetent Masculinities in Recent Film and Television.” Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines. 38.2 (2008): 227-45.
“Gaiety on Tisha B’av: Sexuality, Subjectivity, and Narrative Closure in the Work of Lev Raphael.” Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines 28.2 (1998): 163-76.
“Object or Ground? The Male Body as Fashion Accessory.” Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines 34.3 (2004): 221-31.
“Passing Strange: Queering Whiteness in Joss Whedon’s Angel.” Athanor: Semiotica, Filosofia, Arte, Letteratura. Themed issue: Il bianco in questione/White Matters. Year 17, new series.10 (2006-2007): 229-35.
“Pornography and Male Homosociality: The Case of the New Men’s Studies.” Journal of Social Semiotics: A Transdisciplinary Journal in Functional Linguistics, Semiotics and Critical Theory 1.2 (1991): 51-68.
“Queer Diasporas: Towards a [Re-]Reading of Gay History.” Athanor: Semiotica, Filosofia, Arte, Letteratura. Themed issue: Tra Segni (Between Signs).Year 11, new series.no. 3 (2000): 159-74. Rpt. in Translation Translation. Ed. Susan Petrilli. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2003. 615-32.
“Salome: The More I See You, the More I Want You.” Soundscapes 4.1 (1996): 24-33.
“The Sign of the Dancing Men: Negotiations of Masculinity in Film Musicals.” Masculinities: Gender, Art and Popular Culture: Inaugural National Symposium on Art, Education and Popular Culture. Ian Potter Museum, University of Melbourne: see table of contents for the Symposium at <http://www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/events_transcripts.aspx?type=Symposium&typetitle=Masculinities:%20Gender,%20Art%20and%20Popular%20Culture>, 2004.
“Some Engendered Meaning: Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets.” Works and Days: Essays in the Socio-Historical Dimensions of Literature and the Arts 14, 7 (1989): 7-28.
“True-Speaking Flattery: Narrativity and Authenticity in the Sonnet Sequence.” Poetics 17 (1988): 37-47.
Co-authored journal articles
Buchbinder, David, and Ann Elizabeth McGuire. “The Backlash against Relativism: The New Curricular Fundamentalism.” The International Journal of the Humanities 5.5 (2007): 51-59.
Buchbinder, David, and Ann Elizabeth McGuire. “The Forensic Gothic: Knowledge, the Supernatural, and the Psychic Detective.” Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines. 40.3 (2010): 289-307.
Macintyre, Margaret, and David Buchbinder. “Having It Both Ways: Cross-Dressing in Orton’s What the Butler Saw and Churchill’s Cloud Nine.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 2 (1987): 23-39.
Milech, Barbara H., and David Buchbinder. “Construction Site: The Male Homosexual Subject in Narrative.” Works and Days: Essays in the Socio-Historical Dimensions of Literature and the Arts 18, 9 (1991): 67-87.
Waddell, Charles, and David Buchbinder. “Myth Conceptions of Male Bisexuality.” Southern Review: Special Issue on Masculinity 25.2 (1992): 168-84.
Waddell, Charles, and David Buchbinder. “A Ternary Structure of Male Bisexuality.” National AIDS Bulletin 6.4 (1992): 48-49.
Conference proceedings
“Manners Maketh Man: Men’s Health and the Cultural Representation of Masculinity.” Conference Proceedings: Second National Men’s Health Conference 1997. Ed. Allan Huggins. Bentley, Western Australia: Curtin University of Technology Printing Services, 1998. 363-70.
“Men’s Troubles: The Social Construction of Masculinity and Men’s Health.” Proceedings from National Men’s Health Conference, 10-11 August 1995. Keynote presentation. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1996. 38-41.
Encyclopaedia entries
“Cultural Studies.” International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. Eds. Michael Flood, et al. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 117-20.
“Literature.” International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. Eds. Michael Flood, et al. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 365-69.
“Polysystem Theory.” Encyclopedia of Semiotics. Ed. Paul Bouissac. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 500-02.
Editorships
Essays in Masculinities Studies 2002. Bentley, Western Australia: Black Swan Press, 2003.
Star Trek and Endgame: Millennial Politics, Narratives, Images. A Selection of Papers from the Australian and South Pacific Association for Comparative Literature Studies Conference, Fremantle, Western Australia, 11-13 December 1997. Bentley, Western Australia: Black Swan Press, 2002.
Forthcoming
“Colour and Movement: The Male Dancer, Masculinity and Race in Film,” in Marginalized Masculinities and Media: Exploring the Politics of Race and Identity in America. Ed. Ronald L. Jackson II. (2012)
David Buchbinder 
David, I’m trying…
Dear David Cant find my mobile oh dear Can you ring me to see if it works somewhere in the house?
Hi, Margaret–
I wondered why I hadn’t heard from you for quite a while!
I did try calling you yesterday, before I’d received your WordPress request. Your landline tells me that it’s not connected, and there was–of course–no answer on your mobile. I’ll try again later today.
If you send your address to me at dbuchbin@gmail.com, we can communicate at least that way, rather than through WordPress.
Cheers–and good luck!
David
Dear David I am off to optus today. I have turned the place upside down with no luck. I remember when I last used it and it was at home. Also wanted to say that the CD is magnificent–just blew me away. The neighbours must be getting restive because it has been on so often. Magnificent. Could you send me ann’s number as I need to confirm whether 19th is ok. Or could you ask her and them email me if I haven’t a phone. cheers
Dear Prof Buchbinder – I photocopied an old article of yours in 2011 ‘The Orangutan in the lIbrary’ when I was in Singapore and now am re-reading it in England and remembering how much joy there is whenever I read Pratchett’s books. Thank you for your insights especially on the mix of subtlety and complexity in Pratchett’s title – ‘Carpe Jugulum’ – in your footnote. I had no idea of the ‘yoke’ reference. Thank you – your writing reminded me again how good a writer Pratchett was and how I should re-read his books. Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your article on Pratchett’s books.
Thank you, Karen. Often, when one publishes an article, a chapter, even a book, one has no idea whether readers enjoyed it, and/or found it useful; so it’s always a pleasure to get positive feedback!
David
I’m sorry, this may come across as a silly question, but I’m curious if in your youth you ever dabbled in game design? I found reference to a 1977 game designed by “Dave Buchbinder” among others, and thought it was at least possible, based on its subject matter, that you were the Dave Buchbinder in question. If not, very sorry to bother.
It’s not a silly question at all: it turns out that the world is apparently teeming with David/Dave Buchbinders! I am not, however, the one who “dabbled in game design,” which may mean disappointment for you, but further adventures ahead in your search for the correct Dave Buchbinder! Good luck!
Dear David, it is good to see you here after 30 years. I still remember, and thankful, for your help in production of Antigone at Curtin. Love Jamshid
Hello and thanks, Jamshid! I trust you’re well, and surviving the current pandemic crisis?
David
Hello David. I was listening to someone on the ABC talking about the ‘art of plain English’ and your name came into my head… why? Well I was a student in one of your writing tutorials in about 1976 or 1977 at WAIT. The days of Tracy, Ryan, Philip Salom and Brian Dibble was head of department. Duncan Graham was one of my lecturers. I was a reporter at the ABC and studying part time for a BA in English and Journalism. You had a profound influence on my skill as a writer. While I went on to become a high school teacher, my writing skills were always invaluable. I spent two years writing curriculum in EDWA in East Perth and while teaching in Northam and living in York in 1998, was a founding director of a small company that started the York and Districts Community Matters Newspaper. It is still publishing today, even after most others closed due to coronavirus. While we don’t own the paper anymore I still write a majority of the stories published each month. Thanks a million!
Lindsay
Hi, Lindsay!
Thank you for your contribution–and for the kind words you had to say about my teaching! It’s not often that, as a (now former) teacher I obtain feedback from students, so positive comments such as yours are really gratefully received!
Cheers–
David