Psychoanalytic theory has traditionally taken sexual difference to be the fundamental organizing principle of human subjectivity. "White Men Aren't" contests that assumption, arguing that other forms of difference--particularly race--are equally important to the formation of identity. Thomas DiPiero shows how whiteness and masculinity respond to various, complex cultural phenomena through a process akin to hysteria and how differences traditionally termed "racial" organize psychic, social, and political life as thoroughly as sexual difference does. White masculinity is fraught with anxiety,...

Psychoanalytic theory has traditionally taken sexual difference to be the fundamental organizing principle of human subjectivity. "White Men Aren't" contests that assumption, arguing that other forms of difference--particularly race--are equally important to the formation of identity. Thomas DiPiero shows how whiteness and masculinity respond to various, complex cultural phenomena through a process akin to hysteria and how differences traditionally termed "racial" organize psychic, social, and political life as thoroughly as sexual difference does. White masculinity is fraught with anxiety,...