The Habitus of Mackenzie King: Canadian Artists, Cultural Capital and the Struggle for Power

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dc.contributor.advisorRubin, Donald H.
dc.creatorWagner, Anton Reinhold
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-28T14:56:31Z
dc.date.available2015-08-28T14:56:31Z
dc.date.copyright2014-09-26
dc.date.issued2015-08-28
dc.date.updated2015-08-28T14:56:31Z
dc.degree.disciplineTheatre and Performance Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation analyzes the struggle between William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister (1922-1930, 1935-1948), and Canadian artists to define and determine the nature and distribution of arts and culture in Canada prior to the 1949 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus, “fields” of knowledge and power, and religious, social and cultural capital, the dissertation analyzes the central paradox of why—despite his decades-long involvement in half-a-dozen artistic disciplines—King failed to implement cultural policies as Prime Minister that would have benefited Canadian artists and the arts and culture in Canada. The dissertation applies Pierre Bourdieu’s model of social change in which “priests” with conservation strategies and charismatic “prophets” with subversion strategies compete among the “laity” for consumers of their respective symbolic goods to document how artists organized locally and nationally to accumulate social, cultural and political capital in their attempt to compel the federal government to implement their cultural objectives—state support for the arts. The dissertation posits that Mackenzie King’s inability to control his sexual impulses led him to espouse a conception of art whose primary function was to project Christian character and ideals. By establishing King’s religious and sexual habiti, I am able to show why he felt compelled to project such an idealized characterization in works of art depicting himself, members of his family, and public figures whose service to the nation he felt should be emulated by Canadians. As Leader of the Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and as Prime Minister, King was able to use his political and economic power in the political field over three decades (1919-1948) to define who was a real artist and who was not, what constituted artistic legitimacy and what was the artistic and economic value of Canadian cultural production. The dissertation suggests that the analysis of King’s relationship with the arts and artists provides the key to unlocking the enigma of Mackenzie King and that in the struggle between artists and the Prime Minister over the nature and distribution of arts and culture in Canada, the artists won.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/29894
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectCanadian studies
dc.subjectFine arts
dc.subjectSociology
dc.subject.keywordsMackenzie King
dc.subject.keywordsPierre Bourdieu
dc.subject.keywordsHabitus
dc.subject.keywordsCultural capital
dc.subject.keywordsMax Weber
dc.subject.keywordsCanadian cultural history
dc.subject.keywordsCanadian cultural policy
dc.subject.keywordsGovernment lobbying
dc.subject.keywordsMinistry of culture
dc.subject.keywordsGovernment subsidy
dc.subject.keywordsLawren Harris
dc.subject.keywordsGroup of Seven
dc.subject.keywordsCanadian Arts Council
dc.subject.keywordsFederation of Canadian Artists
dc.subject.keywordsCultural democracy
dc.subject.keywordsVincent Massey
dc.subject.keywordsMassey Commission
dc.subject.keywordsRoyal Commission on National Development in the Arts
dc.subject.keywordsLetters and Sciences
dc.subject.keywordsHerman Voaden
dc.subject.keywordsAllied Arts Council
dc.subject.keywordsMatthew Arnold
dc.subject.keywordsCanada Council
dc.subject.keywordsWilliam Lyon Mackenzie
dc.subject.keywordsIsabel Mackenzie King
dc.subject.keywordsJohn King
dc.subject.keywordsJoan Patteson
dc.subject.keywordsJ.W.L. Forster
dc.subject.keywordsWalter Allward
dc.subject.keywordsVimy Memorial
dc.subject.keywordsBert Harper
dc.subject.keywordsErnest Wise Keyser
dc.subject.keywordsWilliam Wilfred Campbell
dc.subject.keywordsJohn Wentworth Russell
dc.subject.keywordsÉmile Brunet
dc.subject.keywordsPierre-Charles Lenoire
dc.subject.keywordsBertram Brooker
dc.subject.keywordsFrederick Lessore
dc.subject.keywordsLouise “Louie” Burrell
dc.subject.keywordsGiuseppe Guastalla
dc.subject.keywordsRobert Tait McKenzie
dc.subject.keywordsEmanuel Hahn
dc.subject.keywordsHomer Watson
dc.subject.keywordsCarl Ahrens
dc.subject.keywordsStanley Gordon Moyer
dc.subject.keywordsWilliam Orpen
dc.subject.keywordsJosef Hilpert
dc.subject.keywordsNational Gallery
dc.subject.keywordsH.S. Southam
dc.subject.keywordsPublic Archives
dc.subject.keywordsArthur Doughty
dc.subject.keywordsDeane Russell
dc.subject.keywordsYousuf Karsh
dc.subject.keywordsFelix de Weldon
dc.subject.keywordsAvard Fairbanks
dc.subject.keywordsFrank O. Salisbury
dc.subject.keywordsElizabeth Wyn Wood
dc.subject.keywordsWalter Herbert
dc.subject.keywordsRoy Mitchell
dc.subject.keywordsWalter Abell
dc.subject.keywordsJohn Coulter
dc.subject.keywordsAugustus Bridle
dc.subject.keywordsF.B. Housser
dc.subject.keywordsWilliam Arthur Deacon
dc.subject.keywordsThe Secret of Heroism
dc.subject.keywordsMarcus Adeney
dc.subject.keywordsKingston Conference of Canadian Artists
dc.subject.keywordsHouse of Commons Special Committee on Reconstruction and Re-establishment
dc.subject.keywordsGray Turgeon
dc.subject.keywordsDorise Nielsen
dc.subject.keywordsCommunity centres
dc.subject.keywordsBrooke Claxton
dc.subject.keywordsGeorges Bouchard
dc.subject.keywordsCBC Radio
dc.subject.keywordsArthur Phelps
dc.subject.keywordsJohn Martin-Harvey
dc.subject.keywordsInterdepartmental Committee on Canadian Hand Arts and Crafts
dc.subject.keywordsEric Brown
dc.subject.keywordsH.O. McCurry
dc.subject.keywordsCanadian Diamond Jubilee
dc.subject.keywordsNational War Memorial
dc.subject.keywordsSpiritualism
dc.subject.keywordsThe occult
dc.titleThe Habitus of Mackenzie King: Canadian Artists, Cultural Capital and the Struggle for Power
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US

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