Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture was edited by Irene Gammel and published by the University of Toronto Press in August 2002. This volume contains a collection of essays, many of which were presented as papers at the 4th Biennial Conference on L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture held by the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island in 2000. The articles examine the various ways that L.M. Montgomery's works and characters, such as Anne Shirley, have become an enduring cultural phenomenon.
Here is the description of the volume from the University of Toronto Press:
Since the publication of Anne of Green Gables in 1908, L.M. Montgomery and the world of Anne have propelled themselves into a global cultural phenomenon, popular not only in Canada, but in places as diverse as Japan, the United States, and Iran. Making Avonlea, the first study to focus on Montgomery and her characters as popular cultural icons, brings together twenty-three scholars from around the world to examine Montgomery's work, its place in our imagination, and more specifically its myriad spin-offs including musicals, films, television series, t-shirts, dolls, and a tourist industry.
Invoking theories of popular culture, film, literature, drama, and tourism, the essayists probe the emotional attachment and loyalty of many generations of mostly female readers to Montgomery's books while similarly scrutinizing the fierce controversies that surround these books and their author's legacy in Canada. Twenty-five illustrations of theatre and film stills, artwork, and popular cultural artefacts, as well as snapshot pieces featuring personal reflections on Montgomery's novels, are interwoven with scholarly essays to provide a complete picture of the Montgomery cultural phenomenon. Mythopoetics, erotic romance, and visual imagination are subjects of discussion, as is the commercial success of various television series and movies, musicals, and plays based on the Anne books. Scholars are equally concerned with the challenges and disputes that surround the translation of Montgomery's work from print to screen as well as the growth of tourist sites and websites that have themselves moved Avonlea into new cultural landscapes. Making Avonlea allows the reader to travel to these sites and to consider Canada's most enduring literary figures and celebrity author in light of their status as international icons almost one hundred years after they first arrived on the scene.
'Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture is an impressive book ... The significance and importance of its attempt to trace the impact of Anne of Green Gables on popular culture can neither be underestimated nor minimized, and its scope - from novel, to film, to television, to theatre - is extraordinary. The project Gammel has undertaken is ambitious, and the book lives up to its promise ... [It] is a text that will appeal to general readers, cultural studies critics, women's studies specialists, Canadian literature scholars, theorists of popular culture, among many others. Its potential audience is large, and its subject matter provocative, timely, and compelling.'
Priscilla Walton, Department of English, Carleton University
'This is an outstanding book that breaks new ground in gender studies, popular culture studies, and children's literature. The collected essays focus on a fascinating range of topics, including Anne of Green Gable dolls, Anne clubs in Japan, Anne of Green Gables on the Internet, and Anne of Green Gables' house. Due to its unique focus on Anne of Green Gables and popular culture, anyone could find something of interest in this work. It is a ground-breaking book, one of the most important studies on Anne of Green Gables and L.M. Montgomery to be published in years.'
Sherrie Inness, Department of English, Miami University, Ohio
The book includes the following content and essays:
Making Avonlea: An Introduction by Irene Gammel
I. Mapping Avonlea: Cultural Value and Iconography
1. Anne of Green Gables Goes to University: L.M. Montgomery and Academic Culture by Carole Gerson
2. Anatomy of a 'National Icon': Anne of Green Gables and the 'Bosom Friends' Affair by Cecily Devereux
3. Confessions of a Kindred Spirit with an Academic Bent by Brenda R. Weber
4. Taking Control: Hair Red, Black, Gold, and Nut-Brown by Juliet McMaster
5. 'This has been a day in hell': Montgomery, Popular Literature, Life Writing by Margaret Steffler
6. The Visual Imagination of L.M. Montgomery by Elizabeth R. Epperly
7. Writing in Pictures: International Images of Emily by Andrea McKenzie
8. Safe Pleasures for Girls: L.M. Montgomery's Erotic Landscapes by Irene Gammel
II. Viewing Avonlea: Film, Television, Drama, and Musical
9. 'It's all mine': The Modern Woman as Writer in Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables Films by Eleanor Hersey
10. Who's Got the Power? Montgomery, Sullivan, and the Unsuspecting Viewer by K.L. Poe
11. 'She look'd down to Camelot': Anne Shirley, Sullivan, and the Lady of Shalott by Ann F. Howey
12. Road to Avonlea: A Co-production of the Disney Corporation by Benjamin Lefebvre
13. Melodrama for the Nation: Emily of New Moon by Christopher Gittings
14. Paul Ledoux's Anne: A Journey from Page to Stage by George Belliveau
15. Snapshot: Listening to the Music in Anne of Green Gables: The Musical by Carrie MacLellan
III. Touring Avonlea: Landscape, Tourism, and Spin-off Products
16. Towards a Theory of the Popular Landscape in Anne of Green Gables by Janice Fiamengo
17. Mass Marketing, Popular Culture, and the Canadian Celebrity Author by E. Holly Pike
18. Through the Eyes of Memory: L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish by James De Jonge
19. Consumable Avonlea: The Commondification of the Green Gables Mythology by Jeanette Lynes
20. Snapshot: Making Anne and Emily Dolls by Tara MacPhail
21. Snapshot: My Life as Anne in Japan by Tara Nogler
22. Taishu Bunka and Anne Clubs in Japan by Danièle Allard
23. Avonlea in Cyberspace, Or an Invitation to a Hyperreal Tea Party by Alice Van Der Klei
Epilogue: A Letter from Germany by Beate Nock
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Created September 10, 2002. Last updated August 14, 2024.
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