A #PresentingACCUTE Interview

With the upcoming 2025 ACCUTE Conference at George Brown College from 30th May- June 2nd, we have been having an interview series of #PresentingACCUTE which focuses on the presenters in conversation with Gladwell Pamba, ACCUTE’s Coordination and Communications Assistant. Next up on the series is Melanie J. Fishbane, a PhD candidate at Western University and holds an M.F.A. from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and an M.A. from Concordia University. She teaches children’s literature at George Brown College. She writes on gender, romance, and Jewish girlhood in children’s and young adult literature. Her most recent articles are,“‘More Like Americans’: Sydney Taylor’s Queering of Historical Fiction Girls’ Series”in Beyond Nancy Drew: U.S. Girls’ Series Fiction in the Twentieth Century and an essay co-written with Dr. Caroline Jones, “Discovering Grace: Research Challenges in Finding the Lost Ingalls Sister.” Her work is published in L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years 1911–1942 and Reconsidering Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House and Beyond. Her essay, “Two Annes, Many Annes: A Writer’s Reflection on Reading Anne of Green Gables and The Diary of a Young Girl,” was published in the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies andis included in the print edition of L.M. Montgomery and Reading. Her YA novel, Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery, was shortlisted for the Vine Awards for the best in Canadian Jewish Literature.

Tell us a little bit about what you’ll be focusing on in your presentation.

My paper, “Odd and Goblin-Like”: Anti-Semitic Tropes in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, examines how the author uses anti-Semitic tropes in the novel to characterize Black girlhood—specifically the character Topsy— and how the novel functions as a conversion narrative aimed at Jewish women.

Where did this work come from?

My PhD dissertation is on the origins and development of Jewish girlhood by Jewish women writers in Anglo-Literature, specifically looking at the transatlantic connection between Britain and North America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One important aspect is how non-Jewish writers were writing about Jewish people during particular periods and how Jewish writers were responding to this in their own work. In 2023, when I took Professor Alyssa MacLean’s graduate course, Representing Slavery in U.S. Literature, we were asked to complete two short position papers. My paper originated from one of these position papers, as I was always looking for ways to connect my course work to my overall research. (A section of the paper is also included in my dissertation). Early-nineteenth-century Jewish writers, like Grace Aguilar, were writing in response to pressure by Evangelical Christians to convert Jews. As well, scholars on UTC, such as Dawn Coleman, argue that Stowe’s authorial voice is like a preacher writing a sermon. So, I wondered if I read UTC through the lens of an Evangelical Christian text also aimed at converting Jewish people, could Topsy’s character arc be a metaphor for a Jewish person’s conversion? I hope the paper will raise a lot of questions as to why Stowe decided to use these tropes and open up discussions on the connections between Black and Jewish history and American and British literature.

What have you been reading/listening/watching lately that you can recommend to your ACCUTE colleagues?

I’m really enjoying listening to a podcast called “Kindred Spirits: Book Club”. I needed something that held my interest but was also entertaining. This met the requirements. I met Ragon Duffy and Kelly Gerner at the L.M. Montgomery Biennial Conference in Prince Edward Island last June and was immediately smitten with their approach to Montgomery’s work. They are both avid Montgomery readers and studied literature, so they blend the scholarly and reader/fan approach very well. They’ve clearly done their research, and each episode is well written, and entertaining. They have been friends for a long time and have a great dynamic. Each season focuses on one novel (sometimes two), analyzing the work by character, themes, and historical context. I just finished a five-episode arc on Anne of the Island in which Ragon and Kelly explored not only the literary devices that Montgomery used in the novel, Anne Shirley’s ambitions, but also researched the history of all-women’s boarding houses and women in higher education during the early-twentieth century. There was also a whole episode on Gilbert Blythe, which I highly recommend.

What do you love to do when you are not researching, teaching, or studying literature?

More research and writing? J To be honest, much of my time is spent doing the thing I love—writing and doing research. My other interest focuses on the work of L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and constructions of gender in children’s literature. So, I usually have a number of projects on the go. But when I’m not doing those things, I hang out with my partner and our pets, Angel Dog and Merlin Cat. I like exploring used record and book shops and trying out new restaurants in Toronto. My downtime is often spent in other people’s stories, so I watch a lot of K-dramas. I also practice yoga and meditate.