Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre & Gallery

Contact

amdavid@ryerson.ca

Dr. Alison Matthews David is an associate professor in the School of Fashion at Ryerson University. She holds a PhD in Art History from Stanford University. Her research on fashion victims examines how dress causes bodily harm to its makers and wearers. She has also published on military uniforms, and on representations of fashion in literature, notably in L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. She is also interested in colour theory and the aesthetic movement.

Selected Book Publications:

Matthews David, Alison. Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, September 2015.

Selected Exhibitions:

Matthews David, Alison and Elizabeth Semmelhack, cur. Fashion Victims: The Pleasures and Perils of Dress in the 19th Century, Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, June 2014 until June 2016.

Read more about Alison's Fashion Victims Research here.

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The Great War in Literature and Visual Culture

MLC Themes

The Great War in Literature and Visual Culture

Amid the unprecedented social change of World War I, women renegotiated their identities by dramatically changing the way they engaged with the arts. But how did they do so? And how did everyday citizens engage with the war?
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

MLC Themes

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, considered by many to be the mother of Dada, was a daringly innovative poet and an early creator of junk sculpture. “The Baroness” was best known for her sexually charged, often controversial performances.
Modernism in the World

MLC Themes

Modernism in the World

Recent research has departed from the Euro-centric and national view of Modernism to include approaches and methods studying Modernism across national boundaries and across different art forms to include fashion, dance, performance, technology, and visual culture.
Lucy Maud Montgomery

MLC Themes

Lucy Maud Montgomery

L.M. Montgomery is perhaps Canada's most important literary export. She was prolific writer of over 500 short stories and poems, and twenty novels, including the beloved Anne of Green Gables.
Canadian Modernism

MLC Themes

Canadian Modernism

The works of numerous Canadian authors who lived during the modernist era may well constitute the most central and experimental articulation of Canadian modernism in prose, allowing authors to stage cross-cultural, controversial, and even conflicted identities.
Modernist Biography and Life Writing

MLC Themes

Modernist Biography and Life Writing

Life writing, including autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters and testimonials written or told by women and men whose political, literary or philosophical purposes are central to their lives, has become a standard tool for communication and the dissemination of information.