Working Dissertation Outline
CHAPTER 1
Arrival, Displacement, and the Narrative Function of Landscape
Core Claim:
Landscape dominates early Canadian storytelling because there is no shared social infrastructure yet; land becomes the narrative stand-in for identity.
Theory / Articles
Mary Louise Pratt — Imperial Eyes (travel writing & colonial gaze)
Daniel Coleman — White Civility (settler identity formation)
Himani Bannerji — “Geography Lessons” (colonial space & power)
Primary Texts
Pioneer journals (selected excerpts, not exhaustive)
Thomas King — Green Grass, Running Water (as counter-narrative)
Key Question
What narrative work does landscape perform when community does not yet exist?
CHAPTER 2
Survival Without Triumph: Frye, Atwood, and the Settler Condition
Core Claim:
Frye and Atwood theorize landscape not as scenery, but as pressure producing endurance, restraint, and isolation.
Theory / Articles
Northrop Frye — “Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada”
Margaret Atwood — Survival
W.H. New — A History of Canadian Literature (selected chapters)
Primary Texts
Sinclair Ross — As For Me and My House (reference, not focus)
Leonard Cohen — early poetry (restraint, interior survival)
Key Question
How does survival become a national habit of mind rather than a plot device?
CHAPTER 3
From Landscape to Space: Urbanization, Proximity, and Belonging
Core Claim:
As Canada urbanizes and diversifies, survival shifts from environmental to social; space replaces landscape as the primary condition.
Theory / Articles
Henri Lefebvre — The Production of Space
Doreen Massey — “A Global Sense of Place”
Michel de Certeau — “Walking in the City”
Eva Mackey — The House of Difference
Primary Texts
Douglas Coupland — Generation X
Zsuzsi Gartner — Better Living Through Plastic Explosives
Key Question
What happens when Canadians can no longer avoid one another?
CHAPTER 4
Multicultural Proximity and Everyday Negotiation
Core Claim:
Contemporary Canadian media frames belonging as functional and relational rather than ideological or assimilative.
Theory / Articles
Stuart Hall — “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”
Homi Bhabha — The Location of Culture (hybridity)
Sunera Thobani — Exalted Subjects
Sara Ahmed — Strange Encounters
Television
Kim’s Convenience
Little Mosque on the Prairie
The Office Movers
Key Question
What does belonging look like when sameness is no longer the goal?
CHAPTER 5
Masculinity After Isolation: Vulnerability, Excess, and Staying
Core Claim:
Canadian masculinity shifts from stoic endurance to emotional interdependence under conditions of forced proximity.
Theory / Articles
R.W. Connell — Masculinities
Lauren Berlant — Cruel Optimism
Sianne Ngai — Ugly Feelings
Television
Trailer Park Boys
Letterkenny
Music
Alexisonfire (early lyrics)
Death From Above 1979 (pressure, repetition)
Key Question
What replaces stoicism when escape is no longer possible?
CHAPTER 6
Shoresy: The Arena as Nation
Core Claim:
Shoresy functions as a contemporary national text where survival is emotional, collective, and spatial rather than environmental.
Theory (Applied)
Frye (revisited)
Berlant (affect & attachment)
Lefebvre (space as produced)
Primary Media
Shoresy (full series)
John K. Samson — Provincial
The Weakerthans — Reconstruction Site
The Tragically Hip — selected songs
Key Question
How does emotional excess survive in places built for toughness?
CHAPTER 7
Soundtracks of Survival: Music as Emotional Infrastructure
Core Claim:
Canadian music performs the same work as contemporary television: mapping endurance, sincerity, and shared emotional space.
Music
John K. Samson / The Weakerthans
Broken Social Scene (collective authorship)
Metric
Feist
Arkells
Key Question
How does music function as a national text without a landscape?
Conclusion
From Wilderness to Withness
Final Claim:
Canada’s national story has always been about surviving shared conditions. Where those conditions once took the form of land and isolation, they now take the form of proximity, difference, and emotional interdependence.