Dear friends,

May 17 is fast approaching! We are looking forward to seeing you all soon. We are excited for more meals and conversations, to hear what you’ve been up to, to share in all of our creativities.

We have already received responses from many of you who plan to participate in Walpole next month. So far, we will be joined by performers, novelists, researchers, teachers – faces both familiar and new.

Once again, our gathering will take place May 17, 18, and 19 at the UMaine Darling Marine Center in Walpole (http://www.dmc.maine.edu/).

For those who haven’t responded, please let us know by APRIL 15 if you plan to join the gathering. In order to save a space for you at the Darling Center, we need to know if you want to reserve a room for Friday the 17^th and/or Saturday the 18^th.  We also need to give the Darling Center catering counts; please let us know what meals you will be sharing with us during the weekend (Saturday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner; and Sunday: Breakfast)

We will begin Friday evening at 7PM with conversation and a screening of short films by Louise Bourque (http://www.bu.edu/prc/vernacular/bourque.htm).  Friday will also be your time to sign up to read or present your work on Saturday. All day Saturday will be devoted to you and your work.  We will unwind Saturday evening with the music and conversation of a kitchen party, and wrap up Sunday morning with breakfast and a closing discussion.

The program is free for you. We will pay for room and board for all of you who would like to join us and we will not be asking for money at the event. However, we ask that you consider sending a donation to help make our gathering an annual event. This will be our third consecutive year, but without your donations it may be our final. We hope for many more.

All donations are tax-deductible and can be made through the Franco American Studies program website (http://umaine.edu/francoamericanstudies). Click on the “give now” button near the top; we can be found under the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

For more information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either of us.

Hope to hear from you.

Susan & Jake

Ida LeClair will be signing copies of her new self-help humor book, “Finding Your Inner Moose: Ida LeClair’s Guide to Livin’ the Good Life,” (actually penned by Maine-based writer and performer Susan Poulin, the creative force behind the popular stage personality Ida LeClair) at the Franco American Centre on October 24, 2012 at 6pm.

Poulin’s character Ida, is a recently minted “Certified Maine Life Guide.” Ida is a lifelong resident of fictional Mahoosuc Mills, an impossible-to-find, but oh-so-familiar town in Western Maine, where she lives in a tidy and tastefully decorated double-wide with high school sweetheart Charlie and adorable dog Scamp. Most importantly, Ida is a daughter, sister, wife, and best friend who draws upon her experiences (as well as those of the noble and majestic moose) to offer practical and hilarious advice on relationships, physical fitness, stress, housecleaning, work, shopping, fun, and more. (If you are looking for impractical, woo-woo advice from a glammed-up, over-educated, fancy-schmancy life coach, just keep looking!)

In her book, readers will find sections such as: What Did I Do Wrong to Deserve this Turkey Gobbler Neck?; How Many Points in Cabbage Soup?; Feng Shui-ing the Double Wide; Slaying Energy Vampires; and Spousal Deafness. This book is 100 percent Ida, who, as her husband Charlie often says, “just loves giving advice to people, whether they ask for it or not!”

“Finding Your Inner Moose” is part of a developing relationship between Poulin and Islandport. Poulin’s weekly “Just Ask Ida” humor blog and podcast is now produced for Islandport web sites, and Islandport will lend marketing support to Poulin’s shows and events, as well as for her social media sites.

Poulin, once selected by Portland Magazine as one of the “Ten Most Intriguing People In Maine,” created the character Ida LeClair in 1997. Poulin has been a leader in bringing a female voice to New England storytelling and humor, a genre historically dominated by men such as “Bert and I” and Tim Sample. Poulin has produced five stage shows featuring Ida: “Ida: Woman Who Runs with the Moose,” “Ida’s Havin’ a Yard Sale,” “A Very Ida Christmas,” “The Moose in Me, the Moose in You,”  and her latest, “I Married an Alien.”

Yarmouth-based Islandport Press is a dynamic, award-winning publisher dedicated to stories rooted in the essence and sensibilities of New England. For more information, please visit www.islandportpress.com

FAS 120: People Places and Pasts

This class will explore the cultural geography of Franco America.  Together we will investigate how heritage links to place with particular emphasis on gender, class, and ethnicity.   It is run as a seminar, with no prerequisites or knowledge of French or the Franco American community required; this class fulfills the Population and Environment General Education requirement.

FAS 250: The Acadian Experience

This course gives a history of the Acadian peoples, from early settlement to today.  Taught on-line, fulfills Cultural Diversity general education requirement.

May 20-22, 2011 in Orono, ME

Opening event on May 20, 2011 in Soderburg Hall on the University of Maine campus in Orono.

What is the significance of Franco American culture today?  What is a Franco American identity?  How is it experienced?  How is it shared?  The Living Past: Franco American Identity in the Modern World will explore the contemporary expression of Franco American culture through roundtable conversations, storytelling, dramatic performances, music, and art.

Some of the leading voices of the Franco American experience will share their work and invite participants to explore their cultural identity. In addition to scheduled events, there will be numerous opportunities for informal exchanges during our weekend together. It is our goal to build new foundations for the future of Franco American communities.

This gathering is generously funded by the Centre de la Francophonie des Amériques (Québec).  There is a nominal registration fee of $100 which covers all dramatic performances, discussions, readings, receptions, lodging, meals, as well as the Saturday night dance party with live bands.

For further details concerning registration and a list of participants, see conference website.

Created through and collaboratively managed at the University of Maine Franco-American Centre, the newFranco American virtual Library contains lists and links to journal articles, published papers, dissertation, biographies, fiction and non-fiction, periodicals, artwork and audio and video materials about Franco-American life, culture and history.

The project is a unique endeavor, according to Franco-American Centre Director Yvon Labbé, because it is designed for use by members of all communities, in addition to Franco-Americans, and scholars, who are invited to add to the website anything they believe to be of relevance to Franco-American culture and history. It becomes a much more diversified, collective and open-ended resource, he says.

“What’s unique here isn’t just the content,” Labbé says, “it’s the process, as well. I find this whole thing very exciting, because Maine has not always been successful in mirroring Maine for Maine.”

A third of the state’s population is Franco-American, according to Labbé and senior faculty associate of the Centre Tony Brinkley, also an English professor.

Brinkley says the new website is a significant transition for the Franco-American Centre because it is taking 40 years worth of work at the Centre and putting it online, where it is universally accessible.

“As things go out and are accessible, it will have an impact on teachers and students in public schools,” Labbé adds — a much quicker dissemination process than revising and publishing printed material like textbooks.

A catalog of resources for Franco-American studies that’s linked to URSUS and to the Maine State library, the website categorizes annotates in a virtual collection of items by genre and theme, assigns each item geographic tags, and indicates in which library or public collection each item might be found.

“Up until now, there has been no way to find things written about Franco-Americans,” says Susan Pinette, director of Franco-American studies at UMaine. “This resource has been sorely needed by everyone — both academic and community-based researchers.”

The Library of Congress recently came up with a subject heading a few years ago, Pinette says, but even so, “if you type in ‘Franco American’ into most library catalogs, you get books written about French-U.S. diplomacy. There is no way to find Franco-American authors. Even with the Library of Congress designator, it is tough to find Franco-American fiction.”

Pinette, Labbé and Brinkley have worked for the past year with independent researcher and website architect Jacob Albert of Augusta to create the comprehensive online bibliography. The Québec-based Centre de la Francophonie des Amériques provided the funding. The Québec centre is dedicated to developing a promising future for the Maine French language in the context of cultural diversity by enhancing relationships among Francophones and Francophiles of Québec, Canada and the Americas, according to its mission statement.

Albert says the resource currently is populated by materials relative to Franco-American interests in Maine, New England and pushing west, but will grow nationally through public use and user submissions. “Once this becomes more public, we hope folks will get excited about it and help us add to it,” he says.

Its production also was made possible by the support of Chez Nous, a chapter of Royal Arcanum-ACA, formerly known as Association Canado-Américaine.

A group of University of Maine faculty members who are among the authors of a recently published collection of essays, stories, plays, poetry, songs and art that reflect Franco-American life and culture in Maine will read from their work Feb. 14 at 12:15 p.m. at the Franco American Centre on the Orono campus.

Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader was published in 2007 by Tilbury House in Gardiner. Among the coauthors are Rhea Cote Robbins, adjunct professor of Women’s Studies and Franco American Studies; Yvon Labbe, director the Franco American Centre; Kristin Langellier, professor of Communication and Journalism; Jim Bishop, a Continuing and Distance Education faculty member; and Nelson Madore, a Thomas College professor and former Waterville mayor.

The book was edited by Madore and Barry Rodrigue, a professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

The Feb. 14 event also will celebrate the publication of French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets, a collection of Franco American poetry.

The public is invited to the Feb. 14 reading and book signing. Books will be available for purchase.

ORONO – Mouth-watering aromas of North American French cuisine – including succulent tourtière (meat pie), chicken stew, salmon pie and desserts – will permeate the atmosphere in the UMaine Franco-American Centre at Crossland Hall Feb. 24, as the centre invites the public to help celebrate Mardi Gras from noon to 3 p.m. The event is free.

For students, staff, faculty and members of the public, the afternoon will be an unusual opportunity to sample a buffet of traditional North American French cooking. For people who have never tried French-Canadian tourtière or cretons/cortons, a popular paté or pork spread, this is the time to try it, says Lisa Desjardins Michaud, the Franco-American Centre’s communications coordinator. The afternoon also will feature the traditional and easy-to-prepare pancake-like Acadian ployes, and traditional home-style baked beans. Desserts include molasses cookies, mini cream puffs, mini éclairs, and date squares. The event also is a time to learn about Mardi Gras from the Franco-American perspective, according to Michaud, and to experience the raison d’être of the Franco-American Centre. “This is an opportunity for people in the area who are of French-Canadian descent to taste and experience la culture des ancêtres, in a friendly, casual, warm ambiance,” says Michaud. “This is a celebration.” Mardi Gras at the Franco-American Centre will bring French tradition to the campus, she adds. “It’s important to celebrate and to create awareness of our culture at the University of Maine.”

Mardi Gras, translated, means Fat Tuesday. It is a day of feasting and celebration before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, the traditional Catholic period of abstinence and fasting. Mardi Gras is celebrated 47 days before Easter. Michaud, who personally will contribute food to the feast, is working with a team of volunteers from the community and the university, in addition to the University of Maine campus catering service, which will prepare some of the food in the North-American French tradition.

And for a literary pièce de résistance, which will provide a taste of Franco-American culture, Kristin Langellier and Eric Peterson, of the UMaine Communications & Journalism Department, will sign copies of their new book “Storytelling in Daily Life,” which explores various forms of narratives and storytelling, including Maine Franco-Americans’ personal histories as preserved through family storytelling.

For additional information, Michaud is available by telephone at (207) 581-3789. The Franco-American Centre, located in Crossland Hall next to Alfond Arena, is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Differing views on the war with Iraq cannot be allowed to upset long-term collaborations between the United States and France, according to the French diplomat for New England. Speaking at a reception at the Franco-American Centre at the University of Maine, Thierry Vankerk-Hoven, the Consul General of France in Boston, said that the period of differences soon would be history. “We have lived through a very difficult time in our bilateral mediations,” Vankerk-Hoven said to the two dozen people at the center. “France and the U.S. have to work together to fight the threat of terrorism. The important thing is to maintain a close dialog.” While the French government didn’t support the U.S.-led war with Iraq, the two countries maintain similar philosophies. “The United States and France can have differing opinions,” Vankerk-Hoven said. “We share the same values and principles on the defense of freedom.”

In his first trip to Maine since taking office six months ago, Vankerk-Hoven spent the day talking to Gov. John Baldacci and legislators in Augusta about the present climate of French-American relations and the preservation of Franco-American culture. Originally from Paris, Vankerk-Hoven previously served at French embassies in Madrid, London and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He said after the reception that he hasn’t really experienced the ‘French bashing’ felt by French people in other parts of the country. Similarly, ‘freedom fries’ and other antagonisms just don’t make sense, he said. “It’s ridiculous to have this sort of reaction at this point, especially when we have had such a long history of collaboration,” Vankerk-Hoven said. Close cooperation between the two countries is necessary to solve regional crises such as the Middle East conflict, Vankerk-Hoven said. “The important thing now is to work together and try to adopt a common position in the challenges we will face,” he said.

On Thursday, April 17, the University of Maine Press will officially launch the republication of the long-out-of-print Franco-American classic novel, Papa Martel, by Lewiston author Gérard Robichaud. In honor of this event, the University of Maine English Department, the Franco-American Centre, the Franco-American Studies Program, and the UMaine Press will co-host a book-signing reception and readings by Robichaud, now 94, and two other Maine Franco-American writers. Rhea Coté Robbins, of Brewer, author of Wednesday’s Child, and Waterville native Grégoire Chabot, author of Jacques Cartier Discovers America, will read from their works. The book signing reception will be held at 4 p.m. followed by the readings and discussion with the authors from 4:30-6:00, at the Franco-American Centre in the Crossland Hall on the University of Maine campus. The new edition of Papa Martel will be on sale at the event, which is free and open to the public.

Papa Martel, which was originally published by Doubleday in 1961,is the loosely autobiographical story of a Franco-American family, led by Louis Martel. The story is related through the coming of age of his nine children, from 1919 to 1937, with flashbacks to the youthful premarital years of Louis and his future wife Cecile. On a second level, the novel draws out the social context of this distinct chapter in the four-hundred-year Francophone presence in North America. The story is set in Groveton, Maine, an unabashedly Franco and Catholic town loosely based on Lewiston, Maine, the town of Robichaud’s boyhood. Papa Martel, a contract carpenter who travels throughout Maine for work, fills his children with stories of Acadie, their ancestral homeland, in a sense binding his family to the much larger “family” of French in North America.

“It is the story of a strong and loving family,” Robichaud says of his novel. “In accents tender and light-hearted, it speaks of births, marriages and deaths, of affection and love and mutual support given without question, of mutual respect and in-family customs and traditions that last, of a medieval faith that endures to this day in spite of it all.”

Robichaud, whose father was also a contract carpenter, was born in 1908 and left his home in Lewiston at the age of 12, two years after his mother died, to study in a preparatory school in Montreal with the intention of becoming a priest. Like a character in his book, he left the seminary and worked for a short time at a bank in Connecticut before being drawn to New York City. He did not learn English until he was nearly twenty. In 1941, Robichaud enlisted in the Army and served in the Pacific until 1945. He entertained his fellow soldiers with stories of his life in Lewiston. He arrived back in New York on VJ-Day and met his future wife, Elizabeth, that very night. He enrolled in a writing program at Columbia University in 1951 and, at the urging of his wife, began chronicling the family stories he had shared with her and his Army buddies. Those stories formed the basis for Papa Martel.

Recently, the Baxter Society of Portland included Papa Martel on its list of 100 books that reveal the history of Maine and the life of its people. The book has been a favorite in university classes and town library discussions.

“That Papa Martel manages after all these years to home in under our highly developed radar and still touch us suggests a sustaining power beyond the surface appeal of the family’s winning ways,” says Jim Bishop, a lecturer in English at UMaine, who wrote the introduction to the new edition.

Robichaud, who received an honorary degree from UMaine in 1991, has published one other novel, Apple of His Eye, and continues to work on a novel about his war years in the South Pacific.

Since seating will be limited, those who plan to attend the April 17 event are encouraged to contact Yvon Labbe at the Franco-American Centre, 581-3764 or labbe@maine.edu, or Jim Bishop, 581-3618 or Jim_Bishop@umit.maine.edu.

The Franco American Studies Faculty Reading Group The aim of this group is to examine challenging texts within cultural studies, including but not limited to the following topics: language and identity; post-colonialism; language politics; the uses of history in identity formation, multiculturalism, gender, nationalism, the “literary” and ethnography, and “la francophonie.” It is hoped that these topics will be discussed from a variety of approaches in an interdisciplinary manner. Knowledge of Franco American issues is not necessary.