A Magnificent Work

A Magnificent Work is an autobiographical exploration of the interconnectedness of toxic masculinity White supremacy and settler colonialism within the context of Canadian-occupied territories. It is a work of documentary fiction (to use the term of W. G. Sebald) or autotheory (as proposed by Maggie Nelson). Oudshoorn moves from relating his personal experiences as both a son and a father to exploring the ways in which similar events have played out on a much larger scale within the Canadian occupation. Special attention is given to the history of the Mohawk Institute Canadas oldest and longest-running Indian Residential School. Thus although an Anglican bishop once described the Mohawk Institute as a magnificent work Oudshoorn argues that the truly magnificent work that awaits people like him--notably cishet male settlers of Christian and European descent--is the process of embodying a gentle masculinity recovering a sense of ones proper place of connectedness within a network of relationships with varying degrees of responsibility and accountability and striving towards decolonization.