On Monday, the three of us attended A Ryerson Showcase: The Centenary of Anne of Green Gables / A Symposium/Exhibit Organized by the Students in ACS 800 at Ryerson University. Irene Gammel’s 4th-year students did a fantastic job organizing every aspect of the event, and it was a real treat to hear their presentations as well. Two students recreated the brown gloria dress that Mrs. Lynde makes for Anne, and it’s only once you see how intricate it’s made that you realize the sheer amount of work this would have meant for Mrs. Lynde (supposing, of course, that she was an actual person). I don’t have a photo of it, but it will be on display in the Modern Literature and Culture Centre at Ryerson.
Speakers included Irene Gammel, Ann F. Howey, Helen Hoy, Elizabeth MacLeod, Leslie McGrath, Margaret Steffler, Judy Stoffman, Hildi Froese Tiessen, Paul Tiessen, and the three of us. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to reunite with several long-time friends and colleagues, so overall the day was quite enjoyable.
UPDATE: Jason has posted a number of photos of the event, which can be found here.
I was amazed to hear that in the program of “Re-reading Anne of Green Gables within Disability Studies”, Anne was linked with FASD. It’s not literal term, but medical classification and must be used with reasonably correct understandings, so should not be used inconsiderately. Today, intentionally drink while pregnant is already a child abuse, and mother like that often unable to raise the baby properly that even producing another “Barnardo boy”.
I’m not a doctor but was a scientific majoring student, I immediately noticed that assumption of “Anne was FASD handicapped girl” must contains serious mistakes. I also re-confirmed my knowledge of FASD by checking newspaper articles about FASD and searched papers from The New England Journal of Medicine website, that lead to the conclusion of Anne was never FASD because of her hight IQ, academic performance, learning skills, fluent command of language. Anne was popular among her school mates, so her personal communication skill was also high.
Just headless and impulsive won’t be an evidence that Anne was FASD. Although Anne is fictional character, diagnose Anne as FASD is another things.
How can I see the Dr. HELEN HOY’s paper? I’d like to check if it’s accurate from the scientific point of view and encouraging people with FASD to conquer the handicaps, or mealy spreading false understandings and discouraging FASD relevant people.
I was present for Dr. Hoy’s paper, and while the thesis was certainly controversial, I found that it more than adequately addressed the concerns you raise about the scientific appropriateness of the term FASD. I would recommend that you contact Dr. Hoy directly and ask if you can discuss her research findings. Her contact information can be found on the website for the School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph <http://arts.uoguelph.ca/sets/>.