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Now entering a seventh printing, and with over 18,000 copies sold, The Imaginary Indian is a fascinating, revealing history of the "Indian" image mythologized by popular Canadian culture since 1850, propagating stereotypes that exist to this day.

Images of the Indian have always been fundamental to Canadian culture. From the paintings and photographs of the nineteenth century to the Mounted Police sagas and the spectacle of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; from the performances of Pauline Johnson, Grey Owl, and Buffalo Long Lance to the media images of Oka and Elijah Harper—the Imaginary Indian is ever with us, oscillating throughout our history from friend to foe, from Noble Savage to bloodthirsty warrior, from debased alchoholic to wise elder, from monosyllabic "squaw" to eloquent princess, from enemy of progress to protector of the environment.

The Imaginary Indian has been, and continues to be —as Daniel Francis reveals in this book—just about anything the non-Native culture has wanted it to be; and the contradictory stories non-Natives tell about Imaginary Indians are really stories about themselves and the uncertainties that make up their cultural heritage. This is not a book about Native people; it is the story of the images projected upon Native people—and the desperate uses to which they are put.

The Imaginary Indian is an essential title for aboriginal studies in Canada.

Now in its 7th printing.

Customer Reviews (1)

excellent book to open your eyes
I am using this book in my fnat class at VIU and am amazed at how easy it is to understand.Daniel Francis is non-native and he manages to give many perspectives to the image non-natives have of first nations people.
He breaks it down to explain how from first contact non-natives have been creating the "image" of what we think is "indian".Francis helps you figure out where all the myths and cultural misconcepts come from and why many of these ideas were encouraged by non-natives and who gained from these myths.Fascinating reading, I finished it weeks before I was supposed to! ... Read more

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From Dorset sculpture to traveling circuses to the Barenaked Ladies, award-winning historian Jonathan Vance reveals a storyteller's ear for narrative.

In a country of unparalleled diversity, "culture" has many different shades of importance and meaning. A stranded Innu woman found by eighteenth-century explorers in the wind-swept Arctic took the time to decorate her clothing with rich designs. The explorers were taken aback; but Vance informs us that the Inuit word meaning "to make poetry" is the same as the word for "breathe"; and both derive from the word for "the soul." Unsurprisingly, Aboriginal culture began to change with the arrival of more Europeans (who brought their own ideas about culture) in one of the many complicated and intertwined tales that Vance weaves together to explore Canada's cultural history.

Vance considers other key issues. Where, for example, is the divide between "culture" and mass entertainment? He describes plays created by sailors trapped in an ice-bound ship through the Arctic winter; "occasionally lewd" tavern music; an early version of Macbeth with a Monty Pythonesque twist--in Canada, so-called high and low culture have coexisted uneasily, and intermingled creatively.

Vance reveals that the hot-button cultural issues we all know and love--government funding for the arts, the cultural brain drain, the drive to preserve distinctly Canadian forms of expression, concerns over copyright protection, the economic impact of cultural industries--can be traced back to previous centuries. Taking into account both the past and modern developments, such as the thriving culture of Quebec and the evolution of the CBC, Vance addresses one of the quintessential anxieties of Canadians--where, and what, is our culture? ... Read more

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This book, made up of studies of Canadian writers and books, represents perhaps the first attempt on the part of an American critic to deal at the same time with the literatures of both French and English Canada. Among the authors discussed are Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, John Buell, E.J. Pratt, Anne Hebert, Marie-Claire Blais, Roger Lemelin and Andre Laugevin. Mr. Wilson also makes use of history, biography, and journalism to throw light on religious and political crises in Canada. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great look at our neighbors to the north!
This was a gift to a colleague who did his doctorate work on Canadian literature.He said this was the perfect gift and was an excellent resource for all his lit classes.There is a great deal of difference between the two cultures and this book is an excellent survey of those differences. ... Read more

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Canadian society encompasses a variety of cultural, ethnic and religious groups. It is essential for the counsellor to understand the beliefs and thought processes of individuals within these various groups in order to establish rapport and understanding, as well as to make the counselled individual feel comfortable. This book is based on the belief of diversity and the importance of culture that multicultural counselling offers an approach to working with people from different ethnic, racial, religious backgrounds and sexual orientations. Understanding the causes and costs of stereotypes and biases is vital if counsellors are to bridge the ethnic and racial divide. Being secure in one's own identity, culturally and racially, can only help to ensure that people accept and respect individual and collective differences. This book provides necessary background information relative to many of the diverse cultural groups in Canada. ... Read more

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The nineteenth-century Métis politician and mystic Louis Riel has emerged as one of the most popular - and elusive - figures in Canadian culture.Since his hanging for treason in 1885, the self-declared David of the New World has been depicted variously as a traitor to Confederation; a French-Canadian and Catholic martyr; a bloodthirsty rebel; a pan-American liberator; a pawn of shadowy white forces; a Prairie political maverick; a First Nations hero; an alienated intellectual; a victim of Western industrial progress; and even a Father of Confederation.

Albert Braz synthesizes the available material by and about Riel, including film, sculpture, and cartoons, as well as literature in French and English, and analyzes how an historical figure could be portrayed in such contradictory ways.In light of the fact that most aesthetic representations of Riel bear little resemblance not only to one another but also to their purported model, Braz suggests that they reveal less about Riel than they do about their authors and the society to which they belong.The most comprehensive treatment of the representations of Louis Riel in Canadian literature, The False Traitor will be a seminal work in the study of this popular Canadian figure.

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Louis Riel for Dummies
Riel, who led Metis rebellions in present-day Manitoba and Saskatchewan,is extremely important in Canadian history, but was repudiated by most Canadians (French-speakers were somewhat more sympathetic, though by no means unanimous) through WWII. Since then, more and more literature, art, and scholarship has treated Riel as a quintessentially embodiment the conflicts and contradictions of Canadian history and nationhood. The phrase, "fasle traitor," is meant to exemplify Riel's
Braz has done an excellent job of collected many diverse documents, including illustrations whose presence enliven this volume. He also lays out the various "Riels": traitor, lunatic, visionary, cultural mediator, and so forth. The argument suffers a bit from the need to treat so much material; at times it seems to descend into pure plot summary. However, it belongs on the bookshelf of all those interested in Riel, either historically or as a cultural icon. ... Read more

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In Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture Renee Hulan disputes the notion that the north is a source of distinct collective identity for Canadians. Through a synthesis of critical, historical, and theoretical approaches to northern subjects in literary studies, she challenges the epistemology used to support this idea.By investigating mutually dependent categories of identity in literature that depicts northern peoples and places, Hulan provides a descriptive account of representative genres in which the north figures as a central theme - including autobiography, adventure narrative, ethnography, fiction, poetry, and travel writing. She considers each of these diverse genres in terms of the way it explains the cultural identity of a nation formed from the settlement of immigrant peoples on the lands of dispossessed, indigenous peoples.Reading against the background of contemporary ethnographic, literary, and cultural theory, Hulan maintains that the collective Canadian identity idealized in many works representing the north does not occur naturally but is artificially constructed in terms of characteristics inflected by historically contingent ideas of gender and race, such as self-sufficiency, independence, and endurance, and that these characteristics are evoked to justify the nationhood of the Canadian state. ... Read more

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A misunderstood and sometimes maligned figure, Vincent Massey was one of Canada's most influential cultural policy-makers and art patrons.Best known as Canada's first native-born Governor General, he chaired the landmark Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences that led to the creation of the Canada Council.The Force of Culture examines Massey's notion of culture, its conflicted roots in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Canadian Protestant thought, and Massey's transformation into a champion of culture as a bastion of Canadian sovereignty.

Karen Finlay's study goes beyond existing literature by examining the role of Massey's Methodist upbringing in instilling an education gospel as the bedrock of culture and the foundation of a national citizenry.The study also reassesses Massey's reputation as a supporter of the fine arts.Steeped in Methodism, his attitudes towards the arts were ambiguous.He never adopted a purely art-for-art's sake doctrine, but came to understand that the arts, without being moralizing, could serve a moral and cultural purpose:the expression and affirmation of national character and sovereignty.

As well as charting Massey's evolving attitudes towards culture and the arts, Finlay attempts to redress the common charges of sexism, elitism, and anglophonism levelled against him.Finlay stresses Massey's contradictory views on issues relating to gender, race, and class, outweighed by the ongoing legacy of his belief in Canadian cultural diversity.Above all, Massey valorized the principles of excellence and diversity as twin antidotes to the anathema of conformity and cultural homogenization.The tenet Massey sought to honour, pertaining deeply to the collective and moral nature of humanism in Canada, Finlay argues, was community without uniformity.The Force of Culture shows that Massey was, in certain respects, a democratizer and even a populist, who believed that difference need not divide.

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Few books on Canadian art provide an in-depth look at more than one art form from a variety of practical critical perspectives. "Sights of Resistance" offers both breadth and depth in an innovative but accessible introduction to Canadian visual culture. Robert Belton has an impossibly ambitious goal - to create a single-volume introduction to both visual culture and critical practice that neither creates a list of Canadian art's 'greatest hits' nor promotes one way of knowing over another. Belton deliberately includes in his overview both old favourites and many unfamiliar works of art, architecture, crafts, painting, photography, sculpture, and so on, placing as much emphasis on the study of a Native blanket as on the study of a legislative building. He demonstrates how all aspects of Canadian visual art interrelate to form a cultural heritage that is as rich as it is varied. To this end, he endeavours to leave no tradition, time period, or geographical area unmentioned in the numerous case studies he inserts into a broader theoretical framework.The broader theoretical framework is supported by the substantial glossary on CD-ROM that both explains the case studies and provides opportunities for developing radically different perspectives - and in this way the artwork becomes a site/sight of 'resistance'. ... Read more

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Approaches to understanding Canadian visual arts and culture
Robert Belton's Sights Of Resistance provides an in-depth analysis of approaches to understanding Canadian visual arts and culture. Chapters provide many case studies for understanding, while an accompanying CDROM provides a glossary of further explanation: a fine marriage of the book/computer worlds. ... Read more

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Sixteen essays, written by specialists from many fields, grapple with the problem of a popular culture that is not very popular — but is seen by most as vital to the body politic, whether endangered by globalization or capable of politically progressive messages for its audiences.

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Mapper of Mountains follows the career of Dominion Land Surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who provided the first detailed maps of many regions of the Canadian Rockies. Between 1902 and 1930, this unheralded alpinist perfected phototopographical techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs during summers of field work, and spent his winters collating them to provide the Canadian government, tourists, and mountain climbers with accurate topographical maps. Bridgland was a great climber and co-founder of the Alpine Club of Canada. Mapper of Mountains also tells the story of the Rocky Mountain Repeat Photography Project, which studies the changes sustained in the Rockies, repeating the field work accomplished by Bridgland almost a century ago. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

The true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland
Mapper Of Mountains: M.P. Bridgland In The Canadian Rockies 1902-1930 is the true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who climbed many of Canada's Rocky Mountains for the first time and perfected photographic techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs and create accurate topographical maps. In 1915 he applied his top-rate skills to Jasper Park, creating a legacy of research and exacting quality for future generations to build upon. Mapper Of Mountains is the true testimony of one man's lifetime dedication to, and passion for, precisely recording the lay of high and sometimes deadly peaks. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and photographs throughout, Mapper Of Mountains is as much a tribute to geographic history as it is to Bridgland's acute vision and drive.

The true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland
Mapper Of Mountains: M.P. Bridgland In The Canadian Rockies 1902-1930 is the true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who climbed many of Canada's Rocky Mountains for the first time and perfected photographic techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs and create accurate topographical maps. In 1915 he applied his top-rate skills to Jasper Park, creating a legacy of research and exacting quality for future generations to build upon. Mapper Of Mountains is the true testimony of one man's lifetime dedication to, and passion for, precisely recording the lay of high and sometimes deadly peaks. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and photographs throughout, Mapper Of Mountains is as much a tribute to geographic history as it is to Bridgland's acute vision and drive.

The true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland
Mapper Of Mountains: M.P. Bridgland In The Canadian Rockies 1902-1930 is the true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who climbed many of Canada's Rocky Mountains for the first time and perfected photographic techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs and create accurate topographical maps. In 1915 he applied his top-rate skills to Jasper Park, creating a legacy of research and exacting quality for future generations to build upon. Mapper Of Mountains is the true testimony of one man's lifetime dedication to, and passion for, precisely recording the lay of high and sometimes deadly peaks. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and photographs throughout, Mapper Of Mountains is as much a tribute to geographic history as it is to Bridgland's acute vision and drive.

The true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland
Mapper Of Mountains: M.P. Bridgland In The Canadian Rockies 1902-1930 is the true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who climbed many of Canada's Rocky Mountains for the first time and perfected photographic techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs and create accurate topographical maps. In 1915 he applied his top-rate skills to Jasper Park, creating a legacy of research and exacting quality for future generations to build upon. Mapper Of Mountains is the true testimony of one man's lifetime dedication to, and passion for, precisely recording the lay of high and sometimes deadly peaks. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and photographs throughout, Mapper Of Mountains is as much a tribute to geographic history as it is to Bridgland's acute vision and drive.

The true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland
Mapper Of Mountains: M.P. Bridgland In The Canadian Rockies 1902-1930 is the true story of dominion land surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who climbed many of Canada's Rocky Mountains for the first time and perfected photographic techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs and create accurate topographical maps. In 1915 he applied his top-rate skills to Jasper Park, creating a legacy of research and exacting quality for future generations to build upon. Mapper Of Mountains is the true testimony of one man's lifetime dedication to, and passion for, precisely recording the lay of high and sometimes deadly peaks. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and photographs throughout, Mapper Of Mountains is as much a tribute to geographic history as it is to Bridgland's acute vision and drive.
... Read more

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Thirteen essays and addresses on Canadian writing, teaching, and society by one of the most influential critical thinkers of the century. ... Read more

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Adults need playgrounds. In 1907, the Canadian government designated a vast section of the Rocky Mountains as Jasper Forest Park. Tourists now play where Native peoples once lived, fur traders toiled, and Métis families homesteaded. In Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park, I.S. MacLaren and eight other writers unearth the largely unrecorded past of the upper Athabasca River watershed, and bring to light two centuries' worth of human history, tracing the evolution of trading routes into the Rockies’ largest park. Serious history enthusiasts and those with an interest in Canada’s national parks will find a sense of connection in this long overdue study of Jasper. ... Read more

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OUTSTANDING!
"For every armchair mountain climber and back packer this intricate examination of the fur trading, homesteading, and exploring of Canadian mountains is outstanding." ... Read more

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This book examines the representation of masculinities in the fictions and autobiographies of some of Canada's most exciting writers, including Austin Clarke, Dany Laferrière, Neil Bissoondath, Michael Ondaatje, Ven Begamudré, and Rohinton Mistry, to show how cross-cultural migration disrupts assumed codes for masculine behaviour and practice. It is the first book-length study of masculinities in Canadian literature and also the first to discuss these prominent postcolonial writers in relation to one another.

Coleman founds his study on the belief that literary endeavour is socially productive, reflecting but also participating in the production of social practices and identities, and therefore it is a work of cultural commentary as well as literary criticism. The book contends that we can produce alternative masculinities by reading masculinities that challenge our current assumptions, by reading masculinities that are themselves composed of contradictory segments rather than monolithic wholes, and by reading alternatively to elaborate a plethora of masculinities. By including fragments of the author/critic's own autobiography in the text, it also dispenses with the illusion of the all-knowing, unbiased reader.

Masculine Migrations is cutting-edge scholarship and an eminently readable book, which will challenge, provoke discussion, and encourage cross-disciplinary dialogue. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

immigration and masculinity up north
I was looking for a book that explored immigrant masculinity.I only found this, but I am pleased to have read it.In this text, Professor Coleman analyzes the literary work of Canadian men of color and asks what it exposes about the intersection of masculinity and immigration.

Coleman juggles countless balls here.He cites ideas from Judith Butler, bell hooks, Sigmund Freud, and many others.(Then again, many have said literary criticism appropriates many ideas from other disciplines.)Unlike most ethnic studies text which only focus on one racial group, Coleman explores the writings of South Asian men and Black men.There is a touch of linguistic diversity here as he looks at the work of a Francophone Black author, though he never states whether he read the original French or a translated version.

There is one big problem with this book.Coleman selects texts that explore the hypersexuality of Black men and the hyposexuality of Asian men.These works points to depictions of Black men are Priapus-like and Asian men as castrati.Authors have been wrestling with these controlling images for centuries (James Baldwin, Edward Said, and Franz Fanon, are just a few examples of such writers.)Coleman never really states how Canadian men of color break the boundaries of these rigid projections.He scantly mentions gay men of color writing in Canada and I wonder if they have produced more transgressive work in this area.

Professor Coleman was raised in a missionary home in Ethiopia.Thus, he states that he relates to living in a country as an outsider, particularly one of a different race.He intersperses his literary analysis with autobiographical anecdotes.Even he admits that his may be patronizing.I think it may point to his tacit desire to write a booklength story about his life.Though he intends no harm, this may rub some readers the wrong way.Perhaps it hints that he does not have much to say about the texts he selected.

Not all Canadian immigrants are of color, yet no books from white Canadian immigrants are brought up.He stated that he already wrote on First Nations authors in the past.A comparative work would be a great idea for his next book.

This text is a much-needed intervention.I wish there were more professors in American colleges producing work like this. ... Read more

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As Canada came to terms with its role as an independent nation following Confederation in 1867, there was a call for a literary voice to express the needs and desires of a new country. Children’s literature was one of the means through which this new voice found expression. Seen as a tool for both entertaining and educating children, this material is often overtly propagandistic and nationalistic, and addresses some of the key political, economic, and social concerns of Canada as it struggled to maintain national unity during this time. From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood studies a large variety of children’s literature written in English between 1867 and 1911, revealing a distinct interest in questions of national unity and identity among children’s writers of the day and exploring the influence of American and British authors on the shaping of Canadian identity. The visions of Canada expressed in this material are often in competition with one another, but together they illuminate the country’s attempts to define itself and its relation to the world outside its borders.

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This volume presents a series of in-depth studies of particular authors or specific aspects of Germany in Canadian literature and culture, present and past. Individual investigations resonate with each other, adding up to a larger picture of Canada’s views on Germany and things German in all their richness, complexity and historical persistence. ... Read more

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This survey traces the development of the Canadian short story from its 19th-century origins in the sketch and the tale to widespread international recognition in the 1980s.Gadpaille traces the beginnings of realism in the work of such early writers as Roberts, Seton, Knister, Callaghan, and Garner;explores the positive and negative influence of the realist tradition in the work of later writers;and looks in depth at the work of the three most important modern practitioners of the Canadian short story--Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent introduction to Canadian stories
This a a clearly written and concise account of the history of Canadian short stories. I would say it's a must-read for students of Canadian literature or anyone interested in the field. I would like to see a newer edition that discusses stories published since this book's release. ... Read more

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In 1912, Mary Vaux, a botanist, glaciologist, painter, and photographer, wrote about her mountain adventures: “A day on the trail, or a scramble over the glacier, or even with a quiet day in camp to get things in order for the morrow's conquests? Some how when once this wild spirit enters the blood…I can hardly wait to be off again." Vaux's compulsion was shared by many women whose intellects, imaginations, and spirits rose to the challenge of the mountains between the late-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. This Wild Spirit explores a sampling of women's creative responses—in fiction and travel writing, photographs and paintings, embroidery and beadwork, letters and diaries, poetry and posters—to their experiences in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. ... Read more

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In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, President George W. Bush declared that "every nation in every region now has a decision to make: either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Until then, Canada had been contentedly fast-tracking down the post-NAFTA road towards continental integration. Bush's words resurrected an historic sovereignty debate, one that burst into full flame when Canadians, led by Prime Minster Jean Chretien, took the unprecedented decision not to fight alongside their Anglo-American allies in Iraq. Robert Wright argues that Canadians' understanding of notions such as art, culture, unity, identity and sovereignty have always been informed by conflicting forces, most of them beyond the control of ordinary citizens, many beyond the control of governments. He suggests that Canadians are not timid fence-sitters, or apathetic victims of situational forces. Rather, out of conditions of contradiction, paradox and irony, they have developed remarkably sophisticated cultural and political strategies for deriving pleasure, prosperity and peace of mind. Living with contradiction has always been a fact of Canadian life; ambivalence has been the critical framework that has made this living not only possible, but the envy of the world. In Virtual Sovereignty, Wright explores the relationship between modern Canadian nationalism, cultural policy, popular discourse and the lives of ordinary Canadians. One may agree or disagree with the claims of Canadian nationalists, Wright argues, but there can be no disputing their absolutely vital role in the maintenance of national conversation in which all Canadians have a stake. ... Read more

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Issue 25 of Aarhus University Press' arts and humanities journal, "The Dolphin" offers a collection of academic essays on Canadian literature and culture. The title should be seen as a homage to Canada. The essays are intended to constitute a useful introduction to Anglo-Canadian culture. ... Read more