Conrad and masculinity

"Each pair of chapters relates masculinity to a major historical, aesthetic or cultural category: imperialism and race; the body; the problems of truth and knowledge within modernity; the aesthetics and politics of the visual. Rather than attacking or defending Conrad, the author reads both with and against the grain of the fiction, arguing that the important question is not 'was Conrad sexist?' but 'how do we read Conrad now, so as to learn from differences and continuities in the understanding of the masculine?'"--BOOK JACKET.