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More than an ancient means of transportation and trade, the canoe has come to be a symbol of Canada itself. In Canoe Nation, Bruce Erickson argues that the canoe’s sentimental power has come about through a set of narratives that attempt to legitimize a particular vision of Canada that overvalues the nation’s connection to nature. From Alexander Mackenzie to Grey Owl to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the canoe authenticates Canada’s reputation as a tolerant, environmentalist nation, even when there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Ultimately, the stories we tell about the canoe need to be understood as moments in the ever-contested field of cultural politics.
Since the founding of Algonquin Provincial Park in 1893, Ontario has developed a parks system that is held in the highest regard. Today, some 260 parks span the province. Protected Places is a comprehensive account of the attitudes and actions that have shaped provincial parks policy over the century – notably those of early conservationists and more recently of environmentalists, aboriginal peoples, vacationers of every description, naturalists, scientists, loggers, miners, concession operators, the administrators with the responsibility to plan, develop, and manage the parks, and the politicians who made the ultimate decisions on policy matters. Author Gerald Killan’s analysis cuts across the disciplines of history, geography, political science, environmental studies, and the earth and life sciences. The book will be of compelling interest to readers from all thsese backgrounds, as well as the park visitor. Protected Places is being published in 1993 as part of the celebration of the Centennial of Ontario’s provincial parks.
Fur Nation traces the interwoven relationships between sexuality, national identity, and colonialism. Chantal Nadeau shows how Canada, a white settler colony, bases its existence and its nationhood on a complex sexual economy based on women wrapped in fur. Nadeau traces the centrality of fur through a series of intriguing case studies, including: * Hollywood's take on the 330 year history of the Hudson Bay Company, founded to exploit Canada's rich fur resources * the life of a postwar fur fashion photographer * a 1950s musical called Fur Lady * the battle between Brigitte Bardot's anti-fur activists and the fur industry. Nadeau highlights the connection between 'fur ladies' - women wearing, exploiting or promoting furs - and the beaver, symbol of Canada and nature's master builder. She shows how, in postcolonial Canada, the nation is sexualised around female reproduction and fur, which is both a crucial factor in economic development, and a powerful symbol through which the nation itself is conceived and commodified. Fur Nation demonstrates that, for Canada, fur really is the fabric of a nation.
Wolves within the Fold is the first collection of new articles dealing with abuse of authority by religious leaders and the victimization of their parishioners. The power of religion as a symbolic, salvation�promising enterprise resides in its authority to create and shape reality for believers and command their obedience. This power can inspire tremendous acts of human kindness, charity, compassion, and hope. But witch hunts, inquisitions, crusades, and pogroms show us how religious authority can be used for far darker purposes. This abuse of power by religious authorities at the expense of their followers is termed clergy malfeasance by editor Anson Shupe and examined by the contributors...
Canadian-Jewish literature, Greenstein argues, is characterized by the sense of homelessness and exile which dominated the writings of the father of Jewish-Canadian literature, A.M. Klein. Greenstein finds the paradigm for this sense of loss in Henry Kreisel's short story, "The Almost Meeting." Using the theme of this story as a base, Greenstein describes how the Jewish-Canadian writer is divided between life in Canada and a rich European past - between life in the New World and the strong traditions of the Old. The Jewish-Canadian writer may look for a home in both these places, but neither is fulfilling as both are necessary parts of the individual. The writer thus straddles two incompatible worlds and must expect the loss of one or the other. In the struggle to overcome these difficulties and maintain a true dialogue with others and themselves, such writers experience missed or "almost meetings" as they cope with the homelessness that characterizes diaspora and Canada's "third solitude."
In the last seventy years, Quebec has changed from a society dominated by the social edicts of the Catholic Church and the economic interests of anglophone business leaders to a more secular culture that frequently elects separatist political parties and has developed the most comprehensive welfare state in North America. In Contemporary Quebec, leading scholars raise provocative questions about the ways in which Quebec has been transformed since the Second World War and offer competing interpretations of the reasons for the province's quiet and radical revolutions.
"The claim 'I'm straight' is the psychosexual analogue of 'The check is in the mail': if you need to say it, your credit or creditability is already in doubt." So begins Paul Morrison's dazzling polemic, which takes as its point of departure Foucault's famous remark that sex is "the explanation for everything." Combining psychoanalytic, literary, and queer theory, The Explanation for Everything seeks to account for the explanatory power attributed to homosexuality, and its relationship to compulsory heterosexuality. In the process, Morrison presents a scathing indictment of psychoanalysis and its impact on the study of sexuality. In bold but graceful leaps, Morrison applies his critique to a diversity of examples: subjectivity in Oscar Wilde, the cultural construction and reception of AIDS, the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, the practice of bodybuilding, and the contemporary reception of the sexual politics of fascism. Analytical, witty and astute, The Explanation for Everything will challenge and amuse, establishing Paul Morrison as one of our most exciting cultural critics.
Thirteen Canadian writers from the late nineteenth century to today find intrigue, mystery, and terror in the familiar streets and places of Toronto.