Sexing The Maple

“I read this brave book in a canoe. A tribute both to its Canadianness and to Cavell and Dickinson’s balancing act in assembling this rich stew of literary nuggets and historical analysis. Sexing the Maple will be an indispensable resource for any future exploration of sexuality and gender in English Canada whether through a cultural or a historical point of view. Indeed its provocative lesson is that the two cannot be separated in any serious excursion into sexuality in this country or any other. Canonical and non-canonical, queer, queering and beyond, here is a sturdy paddle for those upcoming rapids.” — Thomas Waugh, Concordia University

“Sexing the Maple takes sex out of Canada’s cultural closet. Richard Cavell and Peter Dickinson have assembled an outstanding anthology with fiction and poetry by leading Canadian writers, rare and out-of-print material, and a superb selection of critical articles. The historical and cultural range of topics is impressive, covering the gamut of Canuck sex from anti-masturbation tracts and weird sex in Canadian film to reproductive laws and transgender surgery. This is the first book to theorize and document how stories about our sexualities articulate our sense of Canadian nationhood. The research is impeccable, the theorizing trailblazing, the writing compelling. This book is bold, ambitious, and provocative.” — Irene Gammel, Ryerson University