Revealing and concealing: How objects define masculinity
Digital arts prof Jean-René Leblanc explores cowboy culture to inform visual art project
The lone figure in beat-up cowboy boots. The tough guy peering out from under a Stetson. The Marlboro Man. Do these common portrayals of the cowboy reflect their reality or stereotypes about cowboy culture? In a new research and art project, Dr. Jean-René Leblanc, PhD, aims to find out.
“Masculinity has always been constructed as a single unified voice and this is something that we know is not true. There are many types of men and there are many types of women and we all perform both masculinity and femininity in very different ways,” says the associate professor of digital arts in the Faculty of Arts. “Cowboy culture has been stereotyped through the similar notion that cowboys perform masculinity in a very stereotypical way.”
With a SSHRC grant, Leblanc is extending his research into masculinity and recruiting rodeo cowboys around Alberta to interview about their lives, work and objects, such as their cowboy boots, that are important to their identity.