Robert Fulford
Fulford, Robert Marshall Blount
Robert Marshall Blount Fulford, editor, essayist, critic (b at Ottawa 13 Feb 1932). Editor of SATURDAY NIGHT magazine 1968-87, Fulford has been a champion of liberalism in somewhat the same tradition as J.W. DAFOE and Frank UNDERHILL. Self-educated, he joined the Toronto GLOBE AND MAIL as a copyboy in 1949 and held reportorial jobs until 1953. He was then an editor and writer on various magazines, notably MACLEAN'S, but it was at the TORONTO STAR, which he joined in 1958, that he became an influential critic, first of books, art and jazz, and finally of ideas.
During his tenure at Saturday Night, from which he resigned in June 1987 after Conrad BLACK's takeover, he switched from continentalism to nationalism and in the 1980s drifted towards the more conservative end of the liberal spectrum. His attitudes towards popular culture, which he once relished as a sort of democratic kaleidoscope, have also changed, though his books on the subject, including This Was Expo (1968), Marshall Delaney at the Movies (1974) and An Introduction to the Arts in Canada (1977), remain valuable and enjoyable for their subtle, even style, informed wit and ability to deal lucidly with elusive notions. In Nov 1987, Fulford became Barker Fairley distinguished visitor in Canadian culture at University College, U of T.
Author DOUGLAS FETHERLING
Links to Other Sites
Robert Fulford
The website for the Robert Fulford fonds at McMaster University.
American Fairy Tales
Watch a video clip of journalist and essayist Robert Fulford and journalist and author Linda McQuaig in discussion about Canadians' view of the United States and Americans. From the Dominion Institute website.
Mary Pickford, Glenn Gould, Anne of Green Gables, and Captain Kirk: Canadians in the world's imagination
Robert Fulford ponders Canadian's age-old quest for a distinct national identity.
The Dominion government's advertisement asked for volunteers "able to read and write either the English or French language" with "good antecedents" who were good horsemen...
INSIDE TCE
