Mapping Medievalism: An Indigenous Political Perspective

Abstract

Review of Kathryn Brush (ed.), Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier, London Ontario Canada: Museum London and the McIntosh Gallery, 2010. Mapping Medievalism, a collection of essays written by a professor and nine graduate students, is an examination of the role of settlers’ imagination of Europe’s middle ages in the development of Canadian culture. The project aims to be inclusive of Aboriginal histories, and some authors grapple with the colonial implications of the settlers’ imagining of the medieval. This review provides an indigenous political perspective on the book, and argues that some essays provide useful insight into colonial processes. However, some essays approach colonialism in a non-productive fashion and, ultimately, the publication falls short of its aim to be inclusive to Aboriginal histories.

Keywords

• Aboriginal
• Ontario
• medievalism
• art
• colonization
• Upper Canada
• frontier