{"id":78082,"date":"2022-05-06T15:39:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T19:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=78082"},"modified":"2022-05-06T16:23:33","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T20:23:33","slug":"brock-profs-new-book-examines-canadian-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2022\/05\/brock-profs-new-book-examines-canadian-masculinity\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock prof\u2019s new book examines Canadian masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her new book, Neta Gordon examines the construction of Canadian masculinity and its presentation in short stories.<\/p>\n

In Canadian literary studies, the short story is often thought of as a marginalized or minority genre. Gordon, a Professor in Brock University\u2019s Department of English Language and Literature and Associate Dean for the Faculty of Humanities, was interested in how men presented themselves as marginalized, threatened and in crisis through this genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes a strategy of centring certain voices that present themselves as victims and the masculine figure as worthy of central attention,\u201d says Gordon.<\/p>\n

Bearers of Risk: Writing Masculinity in Contemporary English-Canadian Short Story Cycles<\/a><\/em> examines nine short story collections from the first decade of the 21st century and how authors play with and critique the way crises in masculinity are being centred. The book offers a vocabulary for discussing why these figures are interesting.<\/p>\n

Although the book has been in the works for 15 years, its discussion is relevant to the current rhetoric of masculinity in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rhetoric used by the Freedom Convoy folks \u2014 \u2018We\u2019re just protecting Canada,\u2019 \u2018This is our civic duty,\u2019 \u2018We\u2019re sacrificing ourselves for you\u2019 \u2014 this rhetoric being used by the people who have always had power in this country to bring the country to a standstill is exactly the figure I am talking about,\u201d says Gordon. \u201cCanadian masculinity masquerades as dutiful, sacrificing and community-orientated, not the risk-taking hero of American culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book comes out of a fourth-year course on Canadian short stories Gordon taught that looked at books written about men on fatherhood, boyhood and men\u2019s sexuality. At the time, she noticed that students struggled to see the male characters as having an identity. This led her to think more deeply about how the construction of masculinity within the stories related to the post-9\/11 decade, which was marked by insecurity and fears of crises in masculinity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to talk about the danger of not being able to see this figure,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have to see them. If we\u2019re not able to see them, we\u2019re not able to talk about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gordon also examines the short stories in the context of Canadian literary criticism and prize culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this idea that the short story collection has a certain stature within literary studies,\u201d she says. \u201cThe short story collection is not necessarily a more risky, experimental or challenging genre, even though it tends to be thought about in these terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her data analysis of Canadian short story prizes awarded between 2000 and 2010 showed that almost all the male winners were heteronormative white authors, despite the genre\u2019s reputation of featuring minority voices.<\/p>\n

Gordon hopes the book provides readers with a way to look at the masculine \u201cbearer of risk\u201d figures, the dutiful, civil, sacrificing, Canadian masculine identity who occupies the centre of attention as a form of civic duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her new book, Neta Gordon examines the construction of Canadian masculinity and its presentation in short stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":78083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,37,1,4],"tags":[76,30,9186,3325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78085,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78082\/revisions\/78085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}