Benjamin LefebvreA digital copy of issue 31.4 of English Studies in Canada (December 2005), in which my article “Pigsties and Sunsets” appears, is finally available on the journal’s OJS site. The table of contents is available, or you can download the full text of the article.
Blog
Edited by Irene Gammel and Benjamin Lefebvre
Toronto: University of Toronto Press
Call for Papers
Since its first publication in 1908, L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables has been a remarkable success with a worldwide following of readers and an energetic scholarly engagement over the past two decades. As the novel enters the second centennial of its publication, the University of Toronto Press is interested in publishing a collection of scholarly essays dedicated to the topic Anne of Green Gables: New Directions. The editors are interested in papers related to any aspect of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne, including its inspirations, its sequels, and its cultural impact. Innovative approaches including interdisciplinary perspectives that make us see Anne and the world of Avonlea in new ways are particularly encouraged. Papers should engage with relevant scholarship, and should be written in lively and accessible prose. Illustrations and formerly unpublished material are particularly welcomed. Twenty-five-page papers including all endnotes and bibliography should be accompanied by a bio-sketch and abstract. All essays are subject to blind peer review.
Please submit your paper electronically to the editors:
Dr. Irene Gammel
Department of English
Ryerson University
E: gammel@ryerson.caDr. Benjamin Lefebvre
Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta
E: ben@roomofbensown.net
Irene Gammel is the author of Looking for Anne: How L.M. Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic (Key Porter and St. Martin’s Press, 2008), and most recently the editor of The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery (University of Toronto Press, 2005), and Making Avonlea (University of Toronto Press, 2002).
Benjamin Lefebvre is director of the L.M. Montgomery Research Group and editor of “Reassessments of L.M. Montgomery” (2004), a double issue of Canadian Children’s Literature / Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse.
Deadline: August 15, 2008. Early submissions are encouraged.
I did another interview for CBC Radio 1 last week—on Anne of Green Gables again, but this time in English—and have been told it will air tomorrow morning between 5:45 and 6:00 A.M. I probably won’t be awake to hear it, but if anyone is awake at that hour go to http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ and click on “Atlantic” under the CBC Radio One banner.
I returned late last night from Congress in Vancouver, where I had a great time. Waiting for me was the latest issue of Children’s Literature, where I discovered a listing of my doctoral dissertation in their “Dissertations of Note” column! This was a pleasant surprise, given that the column tends to focus primarily on dissertations from American universities. The column—and the whole issue for that matter—is available through ProjectMuse to subscribing libraries.
I also received an e-mail today from the L.M. Montgomery Research Centre at the University of Guelph (not to be confused with the L.M. Montgomery Research Group that I run) that a tentative program has been posted for their forthcoming conference on Montgomery and the archival collection there. I will be participating in a roundtable of people who will be discussing two short films from the early 1980s: Boys and Girls and I Know a Secret.
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.
Jason has just started a new website named after Complicity Theory, which has been his LiveJournal moniker for some time now, and devoted mainly to his photographs. Visit it here.
Upon reading that version 2.5 of WordPress had finally been released, I went ahead and upgraded it, despite still being on my first cup of coffee. Predictably, calamity ensued because I did not read the instructions first and so subsequently did not make a backup of my old files—or, rather, I saw that my server had kept regular backups of my WordPress databases, but when I tried to retrieve these backups WordPress just reinstalled itself. So now I’m enjoying version 2.5 of WordPress but I have no website left. I have managed to salvage my few posts thus far, but it might take a while to get the rest back up. If nothing else, I am really glad that I started with the upgrade to this website, rather than the one to the L.M. Montgomery Research Group.
I’m pleased to announce that my review of three new books related to Anne of Green Gables—Elizabeth Rollins Epperly’s Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery, Budge Wilson’s Before Green Gables, and Irene Gammel’s Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic—appears in today’s The Globe and Mail on pages D1 and D9 of the Books section. The full text can be found on the Globe and Mail website as well as on this website.
Jason and Yuka and I attended the launch for three new L.M. Montgomery-related books at the ROM. Quill & Quire reproduced some of Jason’s photos in their coverage of the event, which can be found here. I’m the unidentified “fan” wearing red (and no, I didn’t wear red as a tribute to Anne of Green Gables). The remaining photos from Jason’s set can be found here.
Since the sixth anniversary of this website is approaching (launched 1 February 2002 or thereabouts), I thought that it was time to shake things up. So instead of maintaining my website by hand, I’m now using WordPress.org, which is a tremendously useful blogging and content management system. I haven’t had a personal blog in several years, so I’m looking forward to returning to this form of communication.