ABSTRACT
IMAGES IMPRINTED ON MONEY CREATE THE IMPRESSION OF A SELFREFERENTIAL universe of national symbols, from moose to mountains, loons to lakes and Mounties. But as with money, national selves are also created through a ceaseless process of exchange and reflection. The musings about money, culture, and nationality are those of an American character evaluating Canada through the lenses of American movies, in a book by a Canadian-American author1 directed to a Canadian reading audience that generally buys American cultural products. Nations are not only constructed through internally operative dynamics of othering, but through perceptions of others’ perceptions of the nation and of how the nation ‘fits’ the circulating norms of nationhood and sovereignty. The project of currency encapsulates the dilemma of nationstate: it is compelled to respond to and mimic global norms that demand the nation’s display of national difference.
