L.M. Montgomery Research Group

The following call for papers was recently released by the L.M. Montgomery Institute. The volume’s editor and publisher have not yet been announced.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Publication to be based on the 8th International L.M. Montgomery
Conference, 25-29 June 2008.

The L.M. Montgomery Institute is seeking submissions for a proposed publication to be based on the theme of “classic” as discussed at the eighth biennial international Montgomery conference, “L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables and the Idea of ‘Classic.’”

Please send the following materials to the L.M. Montgomery Institute:

• Two typed, double-spaced copies of the paper (no more than twenty pages, including notes). Please note: If submitting electronically, one copy of the file is sufficient.
• Manuscript to use MLA style format with internal citations, end notes, and a works cited.
• A disc copy of the paper, in Microsoft Word or rtf format, using your first initial and last name as the file name (for example: the paper by Cynthia Forest would be recorded in the Word file cforest)
• A 100 word abstract of the paper
• A short biography (less than a page) outlining your publications on and interest in Montgomery (and any other relevant scholarship)

NOTE: You are responsible for permissions, and any associated fees, for any unpublished materials or for illustrations. Illustrations are welcome.

Deadline: Submission deadline is 1 September, 2008 but early submission is encouraged. Questions concerning the publication may be directed to the L.M. Montgomery Institute.

L.M. Montgomery Institute
University of Prince Edward Island
550 University Avenue
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island C1A 4P3
Tel. 902-628-4346
FAX 902-628-4305
lmminst@upei.ca

The following calls for papers appeared in the program for “L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, & the Idea of Classic,” the eighth international L.M. Montgomery Conference hosted by the L.M. Montgomery Institute of UPEI and held at the Delta Prince Edward Hotel in Charlottetown on 25-29 June 2008.

L.M. Montgomery—Writer of the World. International conference, Uppsala University, Sweden, August 20-23, 2009.

L.M. Montgomery’s world famous novel Anne of Green Gables has continued to attract readers from all over the world for a century. Our centenary conference is a tribute to all of those who have made 100 years of readership possible.

The main theme of the conference is “Reading Response.” We will explore reading experiences of Anne of Green Gables and other works by L.M. Montgomery. One section will be dedicated to Anne of Green Gables in Sweden. We also accept open proposals for papers on Montgomery’s works.

We invite you to send in one-page proposals for papers, together with a short biographical note.

Deadline: October 1, 2008. Send in your proposals to Conference Co-ordinator Gabriella Åhmansson at montgomery2009@ahmansson.com.

Queries? Please contact Conference Co-ordinator Åsa Warnqvist at asa.warnqvist@littvet.uu.se. More information on the conference will be published continuously at www.ahmansson.com/montgomery2009.html.

L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature. 9th International conference, University of Prince Edward Island, June 2010.

In 2010 we invite you to consider L.M. Montgomery and the matter of nature. While multiple romanticisms have informed L.M. Montgomery’s passionate views of nature, her descriptions were complex as she wrote both of and for nature. What are the effects of the representations and images of nature that are crafted and circulated in the fiction of Montgomery, and in that of other writers of literature (especially for children and youth)? How do her narrations of nature shape children and adults within and across cultures? How do seasonality and place function in her life writing? How do particular constructions of nature work in fiction, across such differences as gender, race, culture, and class? What are the cultural and historical contingencies surrounding nature in Montgomery’s work?

In recent years, the matter of “nature” itself has been the subject of much-contested debate and theoretical innovation across disciplines. Nature situates binary relationships that are often represented as hierarchical and oppositional. These include nature and culture, child and adult, animal and human, male and female, reason and emotion, mind and body, modern and traditional, raw and cooked, domestic and wild, urban and rural—among others. How might any of these formulations be examined and challenged (or not) in the context of Montgomery’s work? What does it mean to consider Montgomery as a “green” writer (Doody) or as a proto-ecofeminist (Holmes)? What do Montgomery’s provocative readings of nature offer us at a time of environmental crises and ecological preoccupations?

Please send one-page abstracts and short biographical sketches by June 30, 2009, to:

L.M. Montgomery Institute, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3 Canada. E-mail: lmminst@upei.ca.

I will be interviewed by Line Boily on her radio show Les arts et les autres on Monday, 2 June 2008, at 1:05 EST, on Radio-Canada 1 (French-language CBC). The topic is Anne of Green Gables and I will be commenting on its origins, its continued international popularity in the centenary year, and its success in adaptations such as movies, musicals, and tourist sites in Ontario and Prince Edward Island. Since I am presently in Vancouver attending Congress, I will be speaking to her from Studio C at CBC Vancouver.

Les arts et les autres is broadcast across Ontario; to find your local frequency, click here. You can also listen to it live through the Radio-Canada website. On the homepage for Ontario, click on “Écoutez en direct—Première chaine” and choose your nearest location.

Also, today I am participating at a one-day symposium on Anne of Green Gables at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia. In addition to co-chairing an ACCUTE panel on “Anne of Green Gables: New Directions at 100,” I will be one of seven participants in a roundtable called “Anne of Green Gables: A Literary Icon at 100: Canadian Scholars and Critics Reflect on Anne of Green Gables in the Centenary Year,” chaired by Irene Gammel:

This round table of leading Canadian critics and scholars takes stock of Canada’s most famous literary icon, L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, at its centenary anniversary. What is behind the popularity of the novel? What is its global value and status? What is its future in Canada and the world? We also invite the public to submit questions to our panel of experts via email: Anne100@mlc.ryerson.ca.

My five-minute paper is titled “Confessions of a Male Montgomery Scholar” and will include a discussion of my Green Gables toenail clippers. I am also presenting a paper as part of the ACCUTE conference on the fiction of Joy Kogawa.

Je serai l’invité de Line Boily à l’émission de radio Les arts et les autres ce lundi, 2 juin 2008, à 13h05 (heure normale de l’est), à Radio-Canada (première chaine). L’entrevue porte sur le roman Anne… La Maison aux pignons verts : ses origines, sa popularité internationale continue pendant l’année de son centième anniversaire, et son succès dans les médias connexes, telles que le petit écran, la comédie musicale, et le site touristique en Ontario et à l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard. Étant donné que je suis présentement à Vancouver pour assister au Congrès des sciences humaines, je lui parlerai du Studio C à Radio-Canada Vancouver.

L’émission est diffusée à travers l’Ontario; vous trouverez votre fréquence locale ici. Vous pouvez également écouter à l’émission au site web de Radio-Canada. Une fois rendus à la page pour l’Ontario, choisissez la rubrique « Écoutez en direct » ainsi que votre région.

Pre-order listings have appeared on Amazon.ca and Chapters.Indigo.ca for Mary Henley Rubio’s forthcoming biography, The Gift of Wings: The Life of Lucy Maud Montgomery, to be published in October by Doubleday Canada (whose own listing for the book can be found here). More information about this book will be posted here once it becomes available.

We are pleased to present for the first time the cover for Irene Gammel’s upcoming book, Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic, to be published in March 2008 by Key Porter Books (Canada) and St. Martin’s Press (USA). More information about this book will be posted here closer to the publication date.

Links: Publisher’s listing (Key Porter Books); Irene Gammel’s website.

A new collection of essays, titled Storm and Dissonance: L.M. Montgomery and Conflict and edited by Jean Mitchell, will be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2008. Stay tuned for a release date, but in the meantime here is the table of contents.

List of Images and Figures

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

Storm and Dissonance: L.M. Montgomery and Conflict / Jean Mitchell

Part 1: Narrating Self and Other

L.M. Montgomery: The Darker Side / Margaret Doody

L.M. Montgomery and the Anguish of Mother Loss / Rita Bode

L.M. Montgomery and the Conflictedness of a Woman Writer / Carole Gerson

Part 2: A World of Conflict and Private Sorrows

Women at War: L.M. Montgomery, the Great War, and Canadian Cultural Memory / Andrea McKenzie

“That Abominable War”: The Blythes Are Quoted and Thoughts on L.M. Montgomery’s Late Style / Benjamin Lefebvre

Opposing Pacifism: L.M. Montgomery and the Trouble with Ephraim Weber / Paul Tiessen

Reflections of the Great Depression in L.M. Montgomery’s Life and Her Pat Books / Heidi MacDonald

Part 3: Performing Difference(s)

“Tempest in a Teapot”: Domestic Service and Class Conflict in L.M. Montgomery’s Journals and Fiction / E. Holly Pike

Performing Motherhood: L.M. Montgomery’s Display of Maternal Dissonance / Margaret Steffler

Montgomery’s “Imp”: Conflicting Representations of Illness in L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle / Kylee-Anne Hingston

The Fresh-Air Controversy, Health, and Art in L.M. Montgomery’s Emily Novels / Susan Meyer

Sustainable Dissonance: Becoming-Anne through L.M. Montgomery and Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables / Pamela Rossi-Keen

Love and Controversy for Over Eighty Years: Anne, Emily, and Finnish Women: An Interview / Suvi Ahola and Satu Koskimies

Part 4: Avoiding, Mediating, and Resolving Conflicts

Out the Open Window: Avoidance as Conflict Resolution in L.M. Montgomery’s Short Fiction / Trinna S. Frever

“You d—d idiot!” What L.M. Montgomery’s Silent Heroines Really Want to Say / Sarah Clair Atkinson

The Conflicted Worlds behind the Letters of L.M. Montgomery and Ephraim Weber / Hildi Froese Tiessen

“Even a Successful Lawsuit Will Be a Worry”: Law and Community Relations in L.M. Montgomery’s Life and Work / Kate Sutherland

Part V: Troubling, Translations and Dissonant Re-readings

“‘Outrageously Sexual’ Anne”: The Media and Montgomery / Laura Robinson

Conflicting Images: Anne of Green Gables in Germany / Martina Seifert

Hanako Muraoka’s Famous and Truncated Translation of Anne of Green Gables: Some Lingering Questions / Danièle Allard

“Bound for Quebec” or “Journey’s End”? Conflicting Stories about the Montgomery Family’s Arrival in Prince Edward Island / Carolyn Strom Collins

How Green is Green Gables?: An Ecofeminist Perspective on L.M. Montgomery / Nancy Holmes

Epilogue

What Occurs: Storm, Dissonance, and Conflict in L.M. Montgomery’s Life and Writing / Jane Ledwell

Contributors

The following items have been added to the LMMRG bibliography:

Beharriel, S. Ross. Review of The Green Gables Letters: From L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, 1905-1909, ed. Wilfrid Eggleston. Canadian Forum 40.476 (September 1960): 142.

Gillis, Stacy. Review of Making Avonlea: L. M. Montgomery and Popular Culture, ed. Irene Gammel. British Journal of Canadian Studies 16.2 (2003): 425-26.

Hazel, Kathryn-Jane. Review of The Ecstasy of Resistance: A Biography of George Ryga, by James Hoffman; Writing a Life: L. M. Montgomery, by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston; Dear Marian, Dear Hugh: The MacLennan-Engel Correspondence, ed. Christyl Verduyn. British Journal of Canadian Studies 12.1 (1997): 151-52.

Holland, Clifford G. Review of The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery, Volume 1: 1889-1910, ed. Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. Queen’s Quarterly 93.3 (Autumn 1986): 667-68.

Lovell-Smith, Rose. “Ending Only to Begin Again: The Child Reader and One Hundred Years of Sequel and Series Writing.” Children’s Literature and the Fin de Siècle. Ed. Roderick McGillis. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 31-39.

Neutze, Christine Dorothy. Colonial Children: The Fictional Worlds of L. M. Montgomery, Isabel Maud Peacocke and Ethel Turner. Ph.D. diss. U of Auckland, 1981.

Smith, Karen. Review of Lucy-Maud [sic] Montgomery: A Preliminary Bibliography, compiled by Ruth Weber Russell, D. W. Russell, and Rea Wilmshurst. Dalhousie Review 67.1 (Spring 1987): 143-45.

Stott, Jon C. “L.M. Montgomery 1874-1942.” Writers for Children: Critical Studies of Major Authors Since the Seventeenth Century. Ed. Jane M. Bingham. New York: Scribners, 1988. 415-22.

Sumiko, Yokokawa. “The Forty Years of Anne of Green Gables in Japan.” TALL 5.4 (Mar.-Apr. 1996): 37-43.

Thaler, Danielle. “The Novel for Adolescents in Quebec: Stereotypes and New Conventions.” Reflections of Change: Children’s Literature Since 1945. Ed. Sandra Beckett. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 131-40.

Tiessen, Paul. Review of Such a Simple Little Tale: Critical Responses to L. M. Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables,” ed. Mavis Reimer. English Studies in Canada 21.3 (September 1995): 357-59.

Watters, R. E. “Letters from Avonlea.” Review of The Green Gables Letters: From L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, ed. Wilfrid Eggleston. Canadian Literature 5 (Summer 1960): 87-88.

Whitaker, Muriel. “Literary Pen-Pals.” Review of My Dear Mr. M.: Letters to G. B. MacMillan from L. M. Montgomery, ed. Francis W. P. Bolger and Elizabeth R. Epperly. Canadian Literature 90 (Autumn 1981): 141-43.

—. “Women Alone.” Review of The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery, edited by John Ferns and Kevin McCabe; Proper Deafinitions: Collected Theograms, by Betsy Warland; People You’d Trust Your Life To, by Bronwen Wallace. Canadian Literature 132 (Spring 1992): 228-30.

Whitfield, Caroline. Review of Making Avonlea: L. M. Montgomery and Popular Culture, ed. Irene Gammel. Dalhousie Review 84.1 (Spring 2004): 179-80.

The latest issue of The Lion and the Unicorn (31.3, September 2007) is now available through ProjectMuse to subscribing libraries. The issue includes Kate Lawson’s new article, “The Victorian Sickroom in L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle and Emily’s Quest: Sentimental Fiction and the Selling of Dreams” (232-249).

This member-organized session of the 2008 ACCUTE conference at the University of British Columbia welcomes proposals for papers that will coincide with the centennial anniversary of the publication of an important Canadian literary classic, Anne of Green Gables (1908), and with a national exhibition Looking for Anne: Tracing Visual Culture and L.M. Montgomery’s Creative Imagination.

The organizers are interested in proposals related to any aspect of Montgomery’s text, its cultural production, its reception history, and its cultural inspirations. Innovative approaches including interdisciplinary perspectives that make us see Anne and the world of Avonlea in new ways are particularly encouraged.

The deadline for submissions is November 26. Submitters must be ACCUTE members in good standing. Proposals should clearly indicate the originality and significance of the argument and include a list of works cited. Links to relevant Montgomery scholarship are essential; please visit http://lmmresearch.org/bibliography for an updated list of Montgomery materials.

Please send an electronic copy of your proposal (500-700 words), a completed Proposal Submitter’s Information Sheet, and a file containing a 100-word abstract and a 50-word bio-bibliographical note to both co-chairs:

Dr. Irene Gammel
Department of English
Ryerson University
E: gammel@ryerson.ca

Dr. Benjamin Lefebvre
Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta
E: ben@roomofbensown.net

Monika Hilder’s paper “Imagining the Ultimate Kindred Spirit: The Feminist Theological Vision of L.M. Montgomery” will appear in Feminist Theology with a Canadian Accent: Canadian Perspectives on Contextual Feminist Theology, edited by Mary Ann Beavis, with Elaine Guillemin and Barbara Pell and forthcoming from Novalis Press in Fall 2007.