Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture

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.

Reviews

'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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L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture

L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture was edited by Irene Gammel and Elizabeth Rollins Epperly and was published by the University of Toronto Press in June 1999. This volume contains a collection of essays and reflections on L.M. Montgomery's influence on Canadian culture and identity and her place in Canadian literary history. Among other subjects, the articles examine Montgomery's impact on cultural tourism, her role in presenting Canadian culture to a global audience, and her depictions of Canadian womanhood.


Here is the description of the volume from the University of Toronto Press:

Despite the enormous popularity of her books, particularly Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery's role in the development of Canada's national culture is not often discussed by literary historians. This is curious as some of Canada's leading writers, including Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and Jane Urquhart, have acknowledged their indebtedness to Montgomery's fiction.

That scholars have not mined the 'Canadianness' of Montgomery's writing is redressed by this collection. It is the first systematic effort to investigate and explore Montgomery's active engagement with Canadian nationalism and identity, including regionalism, canon formation, and Canadian-American cultural relations. It examines her work in relation to the many dramatic changes of her day, such as the women's movement and the advent of new technologies; and it looks at the national and international consumption of Anne of Green Gables, in the form of both 'high' culture and cultural tourism.

The wide range of contributors represent views from across disciplines and boundaries, including feminist, biographical, psychoanalytical, historical, and cultural approaches. The scholarly reflections are punctuated to great effect by creative pieces, personal reflections, and interviews.

This ground-breaking collection will appeal to all fans of Montgomery's work and to students of Canadian letters. It places Montgomery and her work squarely in the mainstream of Canadian literary history, affirming her importance to our country's cultural development.

Reviews (see additional reviews)

In setting out to prove that a popular writer like Montgomery should be taken seriously as a focal point of Canadian literary history, Gammel and Epperly are singularly successful. The essays are intriguing, informative, and clearly structured, as interesting to the layman as to the scholar.
— Nancy Schiefer, London Free Press, October 23, 1999

Whether she is interpreted as subversive or conservative, this collection leaves no doubt that Montgomery does indeed have a significant place in Canadian culture – whether high, low, or ‘pop' .... It seems fitting, too, that the compilation of literary criticism, personal ‘reflection pieces' and journalism should make a readable collection, likely to be as enjoyable for Montgomery's educated popular audience as it is for her scholarly critics.
— Deirdre Baker, Humanities, 1999

The book includes the following content and essays:

Introduction

L.M. Montgomery and the Shaping of Canadian Culture by Irene Gammel and Elizabeth Epperly

Part 1. Montgomery and Canada: Romancing the Region, Constructing the Nation

Montgomery and Canadian Nationalism
1. 'A Born Canadian': The Bonds of Communal Identity in Anne of Green Gables and A Tangled Web by Laura M. Robinson
2. The End of Canadian Innocence: L.M. Montgomery and the First World War by Owen Dudley Edwards and Jennifer H. Litster

Romance and the Shaping of Canadian Culture
3. 'Dragged at Anne's Chariot Wheels': The Triangle of Author, Publisher, and Fictional Character by Carole Gerson
4. (Re)Producing Canadian Literature: L.M. Montgomery's Emily Novels by E. Holly Pike
5. Reflection Piece—The Poetry of L.M. Montgomery by Elizabeth Waterston

Part 2. Montgomery and Canadian Society: Negotiating Cultural Change

Religion, Education, and Technology
6. L.M. Montgomery: Scottish-Presbyterian Agency in Canadian Culture by Mary Henley Rubio
7. Disciplining Development: L.M. Montgomery and Early Schooling by Irene Gammel and Ann Dutton
8. 'Daisy,' 'Dodgie,' and 'Lady Jane Grey Dort': L.M. Montgomery and the Automobile by Sasha Mullally

Motherhood, Family, and Feminism
9. Knitting Up the World: L.M. Montgomery and Maternal Feminism in Canada by Erika Rothwell
10. The Canadian Family and Female Adolescent Development during the 1930s: Jane of Lantern Hill by Diana Arlene Chlebek
11. Reflection Piece—'I Wrote Two Hours This Morning and Put Up Grape Juice in the Afternoon': The Conflict between Woman and Writer in L.M. Montgomery's Journals by Roberta Buchanan

Part 3. Montgomery and Canadian Iconography: Consuming the Popular

Anne as Cultural Icon
12. The Hard-Won Power of Canadian Womanhood: Reading Anne of Green Gables Today by Frank Davey
13. Anne in Hollywood: The Americanization of a Canadian Icon by Theodore F. Sheckels
14. Reflection Piece—Anne Shirley and the Power of Literacy: Sharon J. Hamilton interviewed by Dianne Hicks Morrow

Montgomery, Canada, and Cultural Tourism
15. Japanese Readings of Anne of Green Gables by Yoshiko Akamatsu
16. Anne of Red Hair: What Do the Japanese See in Anne of Green Gables? by Calvin Trillin
17. Reflection Piece—Revisiting Anne by Margaret Atwood

Epilogue
L.M. Montgomery and the Creation of Prince Edward Island by Deirdre Kessler


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Created October 1, 1999. Last updated August 16, 2024.
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