In this richly illustrated book, Margot Francis explores how whiteness and Indigeneity are articulated through four icons of Canadian identity -- the beaver, the railway, the wilderness of Banff National Park, and “Indianness” -- and the contradictory and contested meanings they evoke. These seemingly benign, even kitschy, images, she argues, are haunted by ideas about race, masculinity, and sexuality that circulated during the formative years of Anglo-Canadian nationhood. Juxtaposing these nostalgic images with the work of contemporary Canadian artists, she investigates how everyday objects can be re-imagined to challenge ideas about history, memory, and national identity.

Margot Francis' profile page

Margot Francis is an associate professor of women’s studies and sociology at Brock University.

Engaging and insightful...Francis's analysis of the history of national parks in Canada and their meaning for national identity will ring particularly true to anyone familiar with the substantial literature in the United States on its national parks system.

BC Studies, No. 176, Winter 2012-13

Through the concept of haunting, Francis provides a new and sophisticated way of thinking about the circulation of images of nationhood, showing how ideas about whiteness, aboriginality, race, and sexuality that were formative in the development of Anglo-Canadian nationhood continue to haunt its contemporary representations.

Anne Whitelaw, Department of Art History, Concordia University

In addition to its scholarly rigour and theoretical sophistication, Creative Subversions is highly readable and engaging...This book is a major contribution to the study of Canada across the disciplines of history, art history, media and film studies, and cultural studies, and it will also be of value to scholars and students of colonialism and culture more generally.

Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol 14, No 1, 2013