Overview

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.

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9780774867214

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Reviews

"""By studying nudism, Mary-Ann Shantz offers a novel lens on significant concerns about Canadian society after World War II.""--Caroline Daley, author of 'Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960' ""What Nudism Exposes deftly explores the fascinating but little-known history of nudism, woven into the larger social story of postwar Canada. No other book focuses on issues of gender relations and sexuality in this context.""--Esyllt W. Jones, University of Manitoba"

By studying nudism, Mary-Ann Shantz offers a novel lens on significant concerns about Canadian society after World War II. --Caroline Daley, author of 'Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960' What Nudism Exposes deftly explores the fascinating but little-known history of nudism, woven into the larger social story of postwar Canada. No other book focuses on issues of gender relations and sexuality in this context. --Esyllt W. Jones, University of Manitoba

Author Information

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.

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