Fictions of uncertainty: The crisis of masculinity and fatherhood in 'ladlit'

Cultural studies has always been indebted to the analysis of how everyday experience can be made sense of in cultural texts. While during the past decades the focus has been increasingly shifted to media texts, the book has not been given much attention. This article argues for a reintegration of popular fiction into the research agenda of cultural studies, claiming that the genre of 'ladlit' may serve as a challenging cultural locus where gendered identity scripts are negotiated, constructed and deconstructed. Based on the premise that popular fiction both shapes and reflects on changing conceptualizations of gender, fatherhood and family life, the article analyses how the masculinity scripts of the New Man and the New Lad are drawn upon in the construction of identity, and how these two scripts are rearticulated and deconstructed with a specific focus on the notion of fatherhood.