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375 MTL – 1/2

Montreal is always a source of inspiration for scholars and you can find a great selection of articles about the city on Érudit. Since we are celebrating its 375th anniversary this year, we decided to dig through our archives to give you a list of articles on the city, from its diverse neighbourhoods to its traditional meals.

We will be posting our selection in two parts on the blog and weekly on our social media throughout the summer. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to discover the next articles!

1
Châtelaine at Expo 67: Chronicles of Modernity

MTL_Châtelaine
Archives de Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

Every Universal exhibition has been an opportunity to bring society up-todate ; Expo 67, for example, played its role by allowing Québec to compare itself to others and become aware of its own value. The magazine Châtelaine supported this new vision of self and others, an approach that served its mission well. The six months during which more than 50 million visitors attended Expo 67 became a time of change in the daily lives of all Quebecers, but especially the province’s female population. We will be looking closely at Châtelaine during the period in question, and will pay particular attention to 1967, the year of the international and Universal exposition, commonly known as Expo 67. it was a time when preconceived notions were challenged, when fashion intruded into daily life, and when new lifestyles emerged. The notion of modernity is a necessity that forms part of the process of moving away from habits and customs, and assimilating international models. Modernity is also a means of liberation from the weight of time, and a sign of new times, when individuality takes precedence. Magazines such as Châtelaine help educate their readership on an ongoing basis. During the period of transition in the 1960s, the proposed changes were a reflection of the Quiet Revolution, when society sought modernity and became explicitly more open to the world.

By Jocelyne Mathieu
Les Cahiers des dix, Number 63, 2009, p. 257–278

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2
Le Mile-End comme synthèse d’une montréalité en devenir

MTL_Mile_end
Bagels, Sans source

Montreal’s interethnic dynamic does not correspond to any known occidental model. In the city’s postmodern cultural maelstrom, plural identity referents are the norm. Located in the heart of the city, the Mile-End neighbourhood synthetizes and symbolizes better than any other the city’s plural and hybrid social reality. In this article, the concept of hybridity as defined by Sherry Simon is presented as a hybrid marker, even though it as been considered pejorative in the past. Based on observations of everyday life, I propose a reflexion on the meaning and scope of the concept of cultural hybridity in the Mile-End neighbourhood. I see this aspect of Mile-End as the crystallization of an emerging « montréalité ».

By Ignace Olazabal
Les Cahiers du Gres, Volume 6, Number 2, Winter, 2006, p. 7–16

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3
L’ancien square Dominion à Montréal : un parcours d’art et d’histoire

800px-Dominion_Square_Montreal_Canada
Archives de Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

By Diane Joly
Histoire Québec, Volume 22, Number 4, 2017, p. 5–8
Un parcours d’art et d’histoire

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4
Vernacular Montreal/Spectacular Montreal : Dialectics of the Urban Imaginary Scene

Montréal_St-Cath
Rue Sainte-Catherine, 25 août 1969, Archives de la Ville de Montréal, VM94-Ad141-001

In the recent history of Montreal, and especially obvious, for example, in the nightly entertainment on the Main (St. Lawrence Boulevard), are the tensions, interactions and exchanges between a vernacular type of show and a series of spectacular events and developments occurring in a logical sequence in line with changes in political and economic circumstances. This paper suggests that the constant renewal of the urban imaginary scene in its dialectical virtualities thus gives shape to the dominant symbolic forms of the moment, of concern to inhabitants, investors and tourists alike. The opposite poles of the imaginary scene, namely the vernacular and the spectacular, can never ignore each other’s existence, and must always call on each other’s participation in their mutual transformations. Cities are at the heart of a global movement of inter-urban competition, striving increasingly to distinguish themselves symbolically from each other. From this standpoint, an understanding of the city in relation to the processes of ’spectacularisation’ as related to the constitution of the urban imaginary scene is all the more pertinent in that it helps us to grasp not only the formation and transformation of a local idiosyncratic identity, but also the specific nature of the steps taken by cities for their economic, political and cultural repositioning in the world.

By Anouk Bélanger
Sociologie et sociétés, Volume 37, Number 1, Spring, 2005, p. 13–34
Le spectacle des villes

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5
Montreal-Style Smoked Meat

MTL_Smoked_Meat
9 mai 1974, entrée de Schwartz’s à Montréal

An interview with Eiran Harris conducted by Lara Rabinovitch, with the cooperation of the Jewish Public Library Archives of Montreal.

By Eiran Harris
Cuizine, Volume 1, Number 2, 2009

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