Coming of Age in Macholand

In 2019, Sandeep Brar, a twenty-seven-year-old Punjabi man from an elite household, gunned down five members of his family before taking his own life after a date was set for his wedding. In his suicide note, he described feeling trapped by society’s expectations and condemned to a marriage - and a life - he had not chosen. His final act was horrific. But the question he left behind was harder to dismiss: What happens when patriarchy tells men they are powerful while giving them almost no freedom to decide who they will become?

In Coming of Age in Macholand, anthropologist Harjant Gill explores how young men respond to a rigid patriarchy - submitting to it, rebelling against it, trying to escape it, and sometimes coming undone by it. Drawing on four years of research, conducted over a decade, Gill brings readers into the intimate worlds of Punjabi boys as they learn what it means to become men. In this deeply personal blend of memoir, ethnography, and social investigation, he makes a compelling case against a system that brutalizes women and queer people while also constricting the emotional, sexual, and intimate lives of the men it claims to serve. Gill will be in conversation with anthropologist David Vine to discuss what men must relinquish – and what they might reclaim – to become truly free.

Harjant Gill is an anthropologist, filmmaker, and writer whose work explores masculinity, migration, sexuality, and the intimate effects of patriarchy in South Asia and its diasporas. He is the director of several award-winning documentaries which have been broadcast on the BBC, PBS, and Doordarshan (Indian National TV). Gill’s work has been supported by the Fulbright Program, the Whiting Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Point Foundation, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. Born in Chandigarh (India) and raised in Northern California, he now lives in Washington, DC, and teaches anthropology at Towson University. Gill’s website is www.HarjantGill.com

David Vine is the author of a trilogy of books about war and peace including The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award in History. David has written about militarized masculinity in the US military and its role in the sexual violence epidemic in the armed forces, as well as how gender and masculinity shape US foreign policy and war making. David, a Clio's neighbor, was a professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, for 18 years, before resigning with the rank of full professor in 2024.