Tracing the full history of traditionally white college
fraternities in America from their days in antebellum all-male
schools to the sprawling modern-day college campus, Nicholas Syrett
reveals how fraternity brothers have defined masculinity over the
course of their 180-year history. Based on extensive research at
twelve different schools and analyzing at least twenty national
fraternities,
The Company He Keeps explores many
factors--such as class, religiosity, race, sexuality, athleticism,
intelligence, and recklessness--that have contributed to particular
versions of fraternal masculinity at different times. Syrett
demonstrates the ways that fraternity brothers' masculinity has had
consequences for other students on campus as well, emphasizing the
exclusion of different groups of classmates and the sexual
exploitation of female college students.