A Magnificent Work is an autobiographical exploration of the interconnectedness of toxic masculinity, White supremacy, and settler colonialism within the context of Canadian-occupied territories. It is a work of ‘documentary fiction’ (to use the term of W. G. Sebald) or ‘autotheory’ (as proposed by Maggie Nelson). Oudshoorn moves from relating his personal experiences as both a son and a father to exploring the ways in which similar events have played out on a much larger scale within the Canadian occupation. Special attention is given to the history of the Mohawk Institute, Canada’s oldest and longest-running ‘Indian Residential School.’ Thus, although an Anglican bishop once described the Mohawk Institute as ‘a magnificent work, ‘ Oudshoorn argues that the truly magnificent work that awaits people like him–notably, cishet male settlers of Christian and European descent–is the process of embodying a gentle masculinity, recovering a sense of one’s proper place of connectedness within a network of relationships with varying degrees of responsibility and accountability, and striving towards decolonization.
About the author
Daniel Oudshoorn is a father, lover, fighter, friend, and failure. He has spent more than twenty years actively pursuing life and mutually liberating solidarity in the company of the oppressed, abandoned, dispossessed, colonized, and left for dead.
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