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History Post-confederation (1867-)

What Nudism Exposes

An Unconventional History of Postwar Canada

by (author) Mary-Ann Shantz

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2022
Category
Post-Confederation (1867-), Gender Studies, General, 20th Century
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774867238
    Publish Date
    Oct 2022
    List Price
    $125.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774867207
    Publish Date
    Oct 2022
    List Price
    $89.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774867214
    Publish Date
    Jun 2023
    List Price
    $34.95

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Description

What Nudism Exposes offers an original perspective on postwar Canada by situating the nudist movement within the broader social and cultural context and considering how nudist clubs navigated changing times.

 

As the nudist movement took root in Canada after the Second World War, its members advanced the idea that going nude and looking at the bodies of others satisfied natural curiosity, loosened the hold of social taboos, and encouraged mental health. By the 1970s, nudists increasingly emphasized the pleasurable aspects of their practice. Mary-Ann Shantz contends that throughout the postwar decades, nudists sought social approval as they engaged with contemporary concerns about childrearing, sexuality, public nudity, and the natural environment.

 

This perceptive, eminently readable book explains the perspectives of the movement while questioning its assumptions. What nudism ultimately exposes is how the body figures at the intersection of nature and culture, the individual and the social, the private and the public.

About the author

Contributor Notes

Mary-Ann Shantz is a historian, researcher, and project manager who lives in Edmonton, Alberta. She is a contributor to Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History and has been published in Histoire sociale/Social History and the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth.

Editorial Reviews

... [a] richly researched and insightful book...

Bob Hummelt, BC Studies