{"id":336,"date":"2009-06-30T11:11:35","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T15:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?page_id=336"},"modified":"2025-10-03T13:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:03:07","slug":"mason-jody","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/people\/mason-jody\/","title":{"rendered":"Jody Mason"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n                    \n             \n                \n            <\/h1>\n\n    \n    <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Research Interests<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>literatures and cultures in Canada<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>twentieth- and twenty-first-century anglophone literatures<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>sociology of literature; print culture studies (reading and reception; publishing; uses of books and book cultures)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>settler-colonial studies and decolonization<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m a settler scholar originally from the territory of the Haldimand Treaty, signed in 1784. My research examines how the book and associated ideas about literacy and self-improvement have helped to elaborate settler colonial logic in Canada. I\u2019m also interested in how the ideologies of the book and literacy dominant in Europe and North America from the late nineteenth century to the present have been contested and revised by Indigenous Peoples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"335\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Jody-Mason-Books-for-Development.png\" alt=\"Home Feelings: Liberal Citizenship and the Canadian Reading Camp Movement\" class=\"wp-image-26764\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mqup.ca\/home-feelings-products-9780773558861.php\"><em>Home Feelings: Liberal Citizenship and the Canadian Reading Camp Movement<\/em><\/a> (McGill-Queen\u2019s UP, 2019), I argue that ideas about literacy and literature played key roles in the emergence of settler-defined, liberal citizenship in Canada. My most recent book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mqup.ca\/books-for-development-products-9780228027010.php\"><em>Books for Development: Canada in the Late Twentieth-Century World<\/em><\/a> (forthcoming in the Rethinking Canada In the World series with McGill-Queen\u2019s UP in 2026) tracks the ways the book, which came to function as a key representative of settler exceptionalism, was used within the context of the development paradigm to express solidarity with newly decolonized nations; to argue for the importance of Canadian leadership in the new international order; and to consolidate settler liberal rule at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My current research considers what sociologist John Thompson calls \u201cpolarization\u201d in the late-twentieth-century field of anglophone literary production. Focusing on Canada, I\u2019m examining how the concomitant rise of conglomerate publishing and the emergence of largely state-funded small-press publishing in Canada after 1965 (including Indigenous-owned publishing) have shaped the contemporary field of Indigenous literary production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m cross-appointed to the School of Canadian Studies; I serve as the Chair of the editorial board of the <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cls\/\">Carleton Library Series<\/a> (published by McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press); and I\u2019m interested in collegial governance (I\u2019ve been a faculty Senator since 2023). I welcome inquiries about potential supervision from students working in any of the fields I identify under \u201cresearch interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recent Honours and Awards<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2020 Winner of the Gabrielle Roy Prize (for <em>Home Feelings<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2020-2024 SSHRC Insight Grant<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2018-19 SSHRC Explore Development Grant (CORIS)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2017 FASS Research Achievement Award<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2013 Shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize (for <em>Writing Unemployment<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2013 FASS Junior Faculty Research Award<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mqup.ca\/books-for-development-products-9780228027010.php\"><em>Books for Development: Canada in the Late Twentieth-Century World<\/em>.<\/a><strong> McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, forthcoming 2026. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mqup.ca\/home-feelings-products-9780773558861.php\"><em>Home Feelings: Liberal Citizenship and the Canadian Reading Camp Movement<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em><em>McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/utorontopress.com\/9781442644335\/writing-unemployment\/\"><em>Writing Unemployment: Worklessness, Mobility, and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century Canadian Literatures<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em> University of Toronto Press, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recent Articles \/ Chapters in Books (Since 2015)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/pub\/3\/article\/937580\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Margaret Wrong Memorial Fund, Late Colonial Development, and the Prizing of African Literatures, 1950-1962<\/a>.&#8221; <em>Research In African Literatures.<\/em> vol. 54, no. 4, Winter 2024, pp. 26\u201355.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(with Sarah Pelletier.) \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/pub\/1\/article\/910956\/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u2018Singular Plurality\u2019: Settler Colonial Transcendence and Canada\u2019s 2021 Guest-of-Honour Campaign at the Frankfurt Book Fair<\/a>.\u201d <em>Book History<\/em>, vol. 26, no. 2, fall 2023, pp. 467-96.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ojs.library.ubc.ca\/index.php\/canlit\/article\/view\/192150\">\u201cCanadian Postwar Book Diplomacy and Settler Contradiction.\u201d<\/a> <em>Canadian Literature<\/em>, 240, 2020, pp. 107-28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ir.library.carleton.ca\/pub\/25925\">\u201c\u2018Capital Intraconversion\u2019 and Canadian Literary Prize Culture.\u201d<\/a> <em>Book History, <\/em>vol. 20, 2017, pp. 424-46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lltjournal.ca\/index.php\/llt\/article\/view\/5811\">\u201cCreating a \u2018Home Feeling\u2019: The Canadian Reading Camp Association and the Uses of Fiction, 1900-1905.\u201d<\/a> <em>Labour \/ Le Travail<\/em>, vol. 76, Fall 2015, pp. 109-32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recent Professional Concerns Publications and Journalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/activehistory.ca\/blog\/2025\/06\/09\/against-lament-developmentalism-and-fourth-world-perspectives\/\">\u201cAgainst Lament: Developmentalism and Fourth-World Perspectives.\u201d<\/a> <em>Active History: History Matters<\/em>, June 9, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDecolonizing Pedagogies: Pipelines and Publishers.\u201d <em>Canadian Literature<\/em>, vol. 253, 2023, pp. 137-44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aidhistory.ca\/the-creative-crusade-settler-colonial-antinomies-and-books-for-development-in-the-age-of-three-worlds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cThe \u2018Creative Crusade\u2019: Settler Colonial Antinomies and Books for Development in the Age of Three Worlds.\u201d<\/a> <em>Canadian Network on Humanitarian History<\/em>, 21 Jan. 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/reviewcanada.ca\/magazine\/2021\/10\/a-fair-exchange\/\">\u201cA Fair Exchange? Off to Frankfurt We Go.\u201d<\/a> <em>Literary Review of Canada<\/em>, October 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/new-can-lit-indie-%20%20book-imprint-is-anything-but-120718\">\u201cNew CanLit \u2018Indie\u2019 Book Imprint is Anything But.\u201d<\/a> <em>The Conversation<\/em> (Canada Edition), 10 Sept. 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(with Dessa Bayrock). <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/ondaatjes-win-of-the-golden-man-booker-prize-is-%20%20complicated-100137\">\u201cOndaatje\u2019s Win of the Golden Man Booker Prize Is Complicated.\u201d<\/a> <em>The Conversation<\/em> (Canada Edition), 23 July 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recent Presentations (Since 2020)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBooks for Development: Fourth-World Challenges to Settler-Canadian Exceptionalism.\u201d Indigenous Literary Studies Association, George Brown College. 2-4 June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDeveloping Africa and Late Twentieth-Century Anglophone Settler Nationalisms.\u201d Canadian Historical Association, York University. 29-31 May 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(with Sarah Pelletier) \u201c\u2018Singular Plurality\u2019: Settler Colonial Transcendence and Canada\u2019s 2021 Guest-of-Honour Campaign at the Frankfurt Book Fair.\u201d Society for the History of Reading, Authorship, and Publishing, Amsterdam \/ Online. 11-15 July 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ualberta.ca\/canadian-literature-centre\/research\/scholarly-lectures.html\">&nbsp;\u201c\u2018The Creative Crusade: Settler Colonial Antinomies and Books for Development in the Age of Three Worlds.\u201d<\/a> Canadian Literature Centre, University of Alberta, Invited Lecture. 5 November 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ph.D. Supervisions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dessa Bayrock, \u201cPrizing Dominance: Disruption, Capital, and the Power and Practices of Literary Prize Culture in Canada,\u201d 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bridgette Brown,&nbsp;\u201cThe South African War (1899-1901) and the Transperipheral Production of Canadian Literatures,\u201d 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christopher Doody,&nbsp;\u201cA Union of the Inkpot: The&nbsp;Canadian Authors Association, 1921-1960,\u201d 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarah Dorward, \u201cErased by Posterity: Popular Literature, Nineteenth-Century Canadian Authorship, and the Transatlantic Print Network,\u201d ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarah Pelletier, \u201c\u2018Neither boy nor man\u2019: Transnational Dimensions of Gender, Race, and Labour in the Nineteenth-Century North American Typographical Trade and Press,\u201d ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Samantha Stevens, \u201cThe Language of Power: Examining Settler Colonial Discourses in Canadian Newspaper Coverage of <em>Restoule v. Canada<\/em> (2021),\u201d ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26130,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Jody","cu_people_last_name":"Mason","cu_people_initials":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[22],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-336","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-professors"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Professor","cu_people_degree":"B.A. Honours, M.A. (University of Western Ontario), Ph.D. (University of Toronto)","cu_building":"","cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"jody_mason@carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27466,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/336\/revisions\/27466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}