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The Conference has Now Concluded

The Program

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph

7:00pm — "Takes on Maud"

A special screening of two short films produced by Atlantis Films, which reflect the themes L. M. Montgomery wrote about so passionately. The Bookshelf Cinema will host the 7:00pm screening of "I Know a Secret" (1984), based on a short story by L. M. Montgomery, and the Academy Award winning "Boys and Girls" (1982), adapted from the story by Alice Munro, will be followed by panel discussion featuring the films' Oscar-winning producer, film and television executive Michael MacMillan; L. M. Montgomery scholar Dr. Elizabeth Waterston, Benjamin Lefebvre, writer and contributor to Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2002) and theatre professor Paul Salmon. Reception in the E-bar to follow.

Cost: $15.00 (plus tax)

Tickets are available at the Bookshelf and U of G Bookstore.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Day — Coach Tour to Bala, Ontario to visit the L. M. Montgomery Museum. Bala's Museum features L. M. Montgomery's stay in Muskoka which became the setting for her only Ontariobased novel, The Blue Castle.

4:00pm to 7:00pm — Registration — Royal City Ballroom Foyer

4:00pm — Bernard Katz — L.M. Montgomery Scholar

Florence Partridge Room, Room 384, McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph

A history of the first editions of Anne of Green Gables, Archival and Special collections, University of Guelph Library. Light Refreshments will be served. Open to all visitors.  This session is Full 

No Charge — Open Event

7:00pm (Opening remarks at 7:30pm) — Registrants and invited guests only.

Official Opening of the exhibit "Searching for Home: The Lives of L.M. Montgomery" (based on the University of Guelph's L. M. Montgomery Collection) at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. Exhibit will run until January 18, 2009.

Note: This event is only open to Full Conference registrants.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

From Canada to the World: The Cultural Influence of L.M. Montgomery

Royal City Ballroom, Delta Hotel, Guelph

Main Program

7:30am to 9:00am — Registration — Royal City Ballroom Foyer

8:45am to 8:50am — Welcome — Alastair Summerlee, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Guelph

8:50am to 8:55am — Mike Ridley, Chief Librarian and CIO, University of Guelph

Mr. Ridley will discuss how important the L.M. Montgomery archives are to the University of Guelph and discuss the important and critical role of donors in developing research and teaching resources at the U of G. Mike will chronicle how the archive came to Guelph and the important role of family members in preserving the documents as well as their desire to make them widely available to the public by donating them to the University.

9:05am to 9:30am — Helen Salmon, Associate Chief Librarian, User Services, and Lorne Bruce, Head, Archives and Special Collections

Mrs. Salmon and Mr. Bruce will host the official launch of the L.M. Montgomery Research Centre Web site. They will speak about Guelph's significant library and special collections that are accessed by researchers from around the world. Not only does Guelph own the world famous L.M. Montgomery Collection, but it has the Scottish Collection, and the Guelph and Wellington County Collection all of which are intertwined. Guelph's vision is to make these collections more accessible to students, faculty and researchers through expanded space, digitization projects, internet exchanges and outreach activities.

9:30am to 10:20am — Dr. Elizabeth Epperly, Professor Emerita and founder of the L.M. Montgomery Institute, UPEI.

"Revisiting Archives"

Dr. Epperly will talk about how her work with archives has shaped her as a writer and scholar, and she will highlight her work with Guelph's "living archives".

10:20am to 3:00pm — Book Sales — Royal City Ballroom Foyer

10:20am to 10:40am — Break — Royal City Ballroom Foyer

10:40am to 11:30am — Dr. Catherine Ross, former Dean of the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.

"Responses to LMM: What Readers Tell Us"

Dr Catherine Ross, former Dean of the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western, has a long-standing research interest in understanding the experience of pleasure-readers. In over 240 open-ended interviews conducted by her and her students, she has asked avid readers to talk about how they choose books, rereading, books that have been important to them in childhood, etc. A surprising number of interviewees talked about how LMM's books became important in their lives, with characters like Anne and Emily and Valancy becoming "friends." Using as a starting point what these interviewed readers have said, Catherine Ross will explore how readers have read LMM.

11:30am to Noon — Liz Driver, Food Historian

Lunch will feature food prepared using recipes from LMM's personal Cookbook. Lunch speaker Food Historian, Liz Driver will look at LMM's Cookbook as an artifact that reveals as much about LMM as about her times. Using recipes Ms Driver will examine the foodways, social activities and traditions associated with eating during LMM's lifetime.

Noon to 12:10pm — Elaine Crawford (of Crawford's Bakery).

A brief presentation by Elaine Crawford (of Crawford's Bakery, 2869 Bovaird Drive West, Brampton, Ontario L6X 0G4) on adapting the original cookbook to the published work Aunt Maud's Cookbook. (Available at signing session)

See the article on the Crawford Bakery at http://www.thestar.com/Travel/article/472551

12:10pm to 1:30pm — Buffet Lunch — Royal City Ballroom Foyer

12:30pm to 1:30pm — Book Signing — Gryphon Room

The book signing session will provide an opportunity for authors to sign books either purchased from the bookstore or personal books. Small round tables with parson style soft chairs will be set up around the perimeter of the room.

Authors are Mary Rubio, Elizabeth Waterston, Elizabeth Epperly, Irene Gammel, Catherine Ross, Elaine Crawford and Liz Driver.

1:30pm to 1:45pm — Åsa Warnqvist, Assistant Professor, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

"L. M. Montgomery in Sweden"

Dr. Warnqvist will discuss her new research project which studies the importance of Montgomery's work to Swedish critics, readers and writers and discuss an 2009 L.M. Montgomery Conference at Uppsala University in Sweden.

1:45pm to 2:30pm — Dr. Irene Gammel, Professor of English and the Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture, Ryerson University

" 'There's such a lot of different Annes in me': Putting Together the Fragments of Life and Writing in Anne of Green Gables"

Dr. Gammel is well-known for her scholarship on gender and modernism. Her research has helped uncover the earliest roots of modern and feminist performance art, contributed to the consolidation of L.M. Montgomery Studies as an academic field, and claimed women's confessional discourses as a sub-discipline of autobiographical studies.

2:30pm to 2:50pm — Break — Royal City Ballroom Foyer

2:50pm to 3:40pm — Dr. Elizabeth Waterston, Professor Emerita, University of Guelph.

Dr. Waterston will examine the Rilla of Ingleside manuscript (contained in the LMM Collection at the University of Guelph) which is one of the few (if not the only) women's war novels about WWI. Elizabeth will look at the patterns of thinking that are revealed through the manuscript.

3:40pm to 4:30pm — Dr. Mary Rubio, Professor Emerita, University of Guelph.

Dr. Rubio will read from her new biography of LMM and talk about the process of writing it, speaking directly to some of the divergences between journals and her research findings.

4:30pm to 6:00pm — Reception & Book Signing — Gryphon Room

6:15pm to 7:00pm — Pre-dinner Show — Royal City Ballroom

Jack and Linda Hutton of Bala's Museum have re-created the lost 1919 silent movie, Anne of Green Gables, starring Mary Miles Minter, and using original movie stills. Their live performance, accompanied by authentic silent movie piano by Jack, an international ragtime performer, will take you right back to that era. The presentation includes movie stills never seen before in a similar performance, and not at the LMM conference in P.E.I. last June. That includes Gilbert disarming Anne after she holds off a mob with a shotgun. Great fun!

7:00pm — Gala Dinner — Royal City Ballroom

Note: only included in the Full Conference Fee or may be registered for separately.

8:30pm — Dinner Keynote Address — Dr. Pamela Wallin, Chancellor, University of Guelph

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Coach tour of Montgomery's Ontario homes: Leaskdale (Uxbridge) and Norval. Guided tours will be provided of the Manses, Churches, gardens, woodlands and walkways that inspired LMM's writings.  Tour is Full