Abstract
This Major Research Project proposes to examine the construction of Canadian masculinity in relation to landscape and national identity. This project traces the tensions that arose with the emergence of industrial society in the latter half of the nineteenth century and explores how masculinity has responded, and continues to respond, to the ramifications that accompanied the changes. Taking as its starting point the iconic figure of the Canadian outdoorsman, this MRP more specifically proposes to examine the figure’s twenty-first century popular incarnation, namely, the urban outdoorsman, the urban man who has appropriated the dress of historical outdoorsmen, such as lumber jacks, loggers, habitants and the coureurs des bois. As the MRP documents, this figure is constructed through sartorial rhetoric in popular print and television media, notably in advertisements of such Canadian companies as the Hudson’s Bay and Roots, foregrounding intersections of gender, nationality and landscape. By examining Roots advertisements from 2013, a year that marked the company’s fortieth anniversary, this MRP will draw on theories having to do with utopias and space (Michel Foucault), nostalgia (Svetlana Boym), and fashion (Jean Baudrillard). Ultimately, this MRP hopes to contribute to a novel understanding of Canadian masculine identity and its heritage and roots with a contribution to Canadian gender, fashion, and cultural studies.
Keywords
Fashion, Masculinity, Nationality, Canadian Landscape, Roots Tom Thomson Collection, Nostalgia, Sartorial Rhetoric
Supervisor
Dr. Irene Gammel; Second reader: Dr. Ben Barry
MRP Completion: July 2015
