"The mythic status of the Oxbridge man at the height of the British Empire persists in depictions of this small, elite world as an ideal of athleticism, intellectualism, tradition, and ritual. In his investigation of the origins of this mythic status, Paul R. Deslandes explores the everyday life of undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge to examine how they experienced manhood. He considers phenomena such as the dynamics of the junior common room, the competition of exams, and the social and athletic obligations of intercollegiate boat races to show how rituals, activities, relationships, and discourses all contributed to gender formation. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including student publications, memoirs, cartoons, photographs, and architecture, Deslandes brings to light the lived experience of undergraduates. Oxbridge Men shows how an influential brand of British manliness was embraced, altered, and occasionally rejected as these students grew from boys into men."--BOOK JACKET.