Farming the Wetlands of Old Acadie (Acadian Museum, Erath, Louisiana)

Erath. Sat 3/27/2010 at 1:00 PM
Acadian Museum, 203 South Broadway, St. Landry Parish (Louisiana)

The Center for Cultural & Eco-Tourism presents "Farming the Wetlands of Old Acadie: A Permanent Museum Exhibit and Symposium Exploring the Ecology and Cultural Traditions of Early Acadians," at 1 p.m. March 27 at the Acadian Museum, 203 South Broadway, Erath. Developed in 2006 at LSU, the exhibit explores the ecological backdrop and agricultural innovations of the early Acadian settlers during the seventeenth century. This bilingual exhibit will have a permanent home at the Acadian Museum. It illustrates the historical significance of the Acadian farmers, the science behind their farming methods, as well as the ecology of the Nova Scotian landscape. The exhibit also includes coastal restoration projects currently functioning in former Acadian territory. The exhibit traveled throughout southwest Louisiana in 2007 and will now be installed in the Acadian Room of the Acadian Museum in Erath, Louisiana. In conjunction with the new exhibit, the museum will host an afternoon symposium Saturday, March 27, 2010, beginning at 1pm at Bonne Soirée, one door down from the Acadian Museum, located at 209 S. Broadway St.

The symposium features presentations by UL Lafayette anthropologist Dr. Ray Brassieur, coastal ecologist Dr. Whitney Broussard, as well as keynote speaker Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray of Mount Allison University, Canada and a roundtable discussion with local farmers, soil scientists, and cultural geographers. Following t he symposium will be a Grand Opening of the exhibit at 4pm at the Acadian Museum. Music and refreshments will be provided. Entry to all events is free and open to the public.

This event is brought to you by the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism through support from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. The original 2006 exhibit was compiled by graduate students Whitney Broussard, Melissa Baustian, Russell Fielding, and Jenn Lasseigne. They traveled through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick studying the ecology of the salt marshes surrounding the Bay of Fundy, the historical use of the salt marshes for agriculture by early Acadians, how the land use has shifted over the past 300 years following the deportation of the Acadians, and how present-day restoration techniques are being applied to these marshes.

Acadian Museum website: http://www.acadianmuseum.com/

Dictionary of Louisiana French

Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities. University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
By Albert Valdman, Kevin J. Rottet, Barry Jean Ancelet, Richard Guidry, Thomas Klinger, Amanda Lafleur, Tamara Lindner, Michael Picone, Dominique Ryon.

The "Dictionary of Louisiana French (DLF)" provides the richest inventory of French vocabulary in Louisiana and reflects precisely the speech of the period from 1930 to the present. This dictionary describes the current usage of French-speaking peoples in the five broad regions of South Louisiana: the coastal marshes, the banks of the Mississippi River, the central area, the north, and the western prairie. Data were collected during interviews from at least five persons in each of twenty-four areas in these regions. In addition to the data collected from fieldwork, the dictionary contains material compiled from existing lexical inventories, from texts published after 1930, and from archival recordings.

The new authoritative resource, the "DLF" not only contains the largest number of words and expressions but also provides the most complete information available for each entry. Entries include the word in the conventional French spelling, the pronunciation (including attested variants), the part of speech classification, the English equivalent, and the word's use in common phrases. The "DLF" features a wealth of illustrative examples derived from fieldwork and textual sources and identification of the parish where the entry was collected or the source from which it was compiled. An English-to-Louisiana French index enables readers to find out how particular notions would be expressed in "la Louisiane."

Order on:
http://www.crt.state.la.us/codofil/Newsletters/Louisiana_French_Dictionary.htm

Beverly Matherne. Lamothe-Cadillac : Sa jeunesse en France. His Early Life in France.

Beverly Matherne. Lamothe-Cadillac : Sa jeunesse en France. His Early Life in France.
Suite de poèmes en prose en français et en anglais.
Written in Linked Prose Poems in French and English.
Éditions Tintamarre, 2009.

Quel plaisir de plonger au cœur d’une page d’Histoire qui respire la vie et la bonne chair au lieu de la poussière et du renfermé. […] La poésie de Matherne est sensuelle et savoureuse, narrative et palpable...

La suite sur :
http://www.centenary.edu/editions/nouveautes.html


What a pleasure to plunge into the heart of a page of history that breathes life rather than dust. While reading Beverly Matherne. […] Matherne’s poetry is sensual and delicious, narrative, capable of being seen and felt...
More on:
http://www.centenary.edu/editions/new.html

Des plaques minéralogiques en français en Louisiane (extrait)

Lu sur France-Amérique.com :

Jean-Cosme Delaloye - 20 mai 2009
Le Conseil pour le développement du français en Louisiane (CODOFIL) vient de lancer une plaque minéralogique en français dans toute la Louisiane pour lever des fonds au bénéfice de ses cours d’immersion.
La nuance est subtile mais importante pour les Cadiens et Cajuns de Louisiane. Sur les nouvelles plaques minéralogiques disponibles depuis quelques jours, le « a » de Louisiana a été remplacé par un « e » qui rappelle l’héritage francophone de cet État du sud des États-Unis. David Cheramie, directeur du CODOFIL à Lafayette, explique que l’idée de proposer une série de plaques en français, est née il y a un peu plus de deux ans : « Nous voulions une plaque spéciale pour promouvoir l’identité francophone tout en levant des fonds pour nos programmes d’immersion en français ».
Le processus a pris deux ans car le projet a dû être approuvé par le parlement de l’État. Cette plaque sur laquelle on peut lire « Chez nous autres » et qui représente une glaie bleue, sorte d’iris, et un bayou typique de Louisiane, coûte 50 dollars pour deux ans au lieu des 25 dollars pour une plaque normal.

La suite sur :
http://www.france-amerique.com/articles/2009/05/20/des-plaques-mineralogiques-en-francais-en-louisiane.html

S'aimant en semant la poésie Louisianaise

Une vidéo proposée par le Centenary College (Shreveport) sur la littérature de Louisiane :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_r1ohAhNDM

Éditions Tintamarre (Louisiane)

Les Éditions Tintamarre sont basées à Shreveport, en Louisiane. Cette maison d’édition, fortifiée par plusieurs d’années d’expérience dans la réédition de textes louisianais du XIXe siècle, est dirigée depuis 2003 par Dana Kress, professeur au Centenary College.

Baron Rouge 19-59. Nouveau roman de Freddy De Pues.
Black and White & In the Red River Swamps: Two Stories by Friederich Gerstäcker, Bilingual edition translated and edited by Mark Gruettner and Robert Bareikis.
Bras Coupé et autres récits louisianais. Louis-Armand Garreau. Introduction de Fabrice Leroy.
Contes d'une grand-mère louisianaise. Sidonie de La Houssaye. Introduction et notes de Jonathan Vidrine.
Contes et Récits de la Louisiane Créole, Tome I. Texte établi par Ashley Owens.
Chroniques louisianaises. François Tujague.
Die Geheimnisse von New-Orleans. Ludwig Reizenstein. Herausgegeben von Steven Rowan.
Fables et Rêveries. Jules Choppin. Texte étabi par Roxanne E. Smith.
Johnelle. Alfred Mercier. Text edited by Christine Elizabeth Downes.
Julie Choufleur ou Les Preuves d'amour. David Cheramie.
L’Habitation Saint-Ybars. Alfred Mercier.
L’école Gombo. Kirby Jambon.
La Nouvelle Atala. Adrien Rouquette. Édition critique par Elizabeth B. Landry.
Le Fou de Palerme. Alfred Mercier. Texte établi par Carrie A. Lombardino.
Le Vieux Salomon. Charles Testut.
Les Cenelles. Armand Lanusse. Texte établi par Mia D. Reamer.
Les Éphémères. Alexandre Latil. Texte établi par Kelsey Bellamy.
Les Quarteronnes de la Nouvelle-Orléans. Tome I, Octavia & Violetta. Sidonie de La Houssaye. Introduction et notes de Christian Hommel.
Les Vagabondes. Camille Thierry. Édition critique par Frans C. Amelinckx et May Rush Gwin Waggoner.
Lidia. Alfred Mercier. Text edited by Jenny Loer.
Louisiana. Armand Garreau. Édition critique par D. A. Kress.
Paroles d’honneur : Écrits de Créoles de couleur néo-orléanais. Édition critique par Chris Michaelides.
Saint-Denis. Charles Testut. Texte établi par Courtney Herzog.
Vendanges. George Dessommes. Text edited by Margaret E. Mahoney.

De nouvelles éditions d’auteurs contemporains ont commencé en 2006 avec la parution de L’école Gombo de Kirby Jambon ou encore de Julie Choufleur par David Cheramie.

Le site internet des Éditions Tintamarre :
http://www.centenary.edu/editions/index.html

Sur la littérature cadienne / On Cajun Literature

Dr. Olivier Marteau "Une littérature minoritaire francophone dans le sud de la Louisiane : Le pari de la création d’un champ littéraire (1980-2006)"
(University of Louisiana at Lafayette, avril 2007, 325 p.)

ABSTRACT The dissertation explores the emergence of a new generation of Cajun writers through Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of “champ littéraire” and “instances de légitimation.” In 1980, a small group of activist leaders began to write literature in French again, after a half-century hiatus, in order to preserve the rapidly eroding community values and Cajun culture in general. Indeed, modernity caused an undeniable challenge for the Louisiana Francophone community, whose number of speakers has been decreasing with each generation. Since this new generation of Cajun writers became painfully aware that the oral transmission of French traditions was in danger, they created poetry, plays, and novels as a political and pedagogical response to the pressure of Americanization. The self-actualization formula stated in essence that the future of French in Louisiana is possible: “All we have to do is write it ourselves!” Today, this corpus contains more than 900 texts, but their access remains limited. Even if the writers created an editorial collection, a journal and few anthologies, and developed internal institutions (events, awards, university courses, etc.), they represent only a small group of individuals who have to fight to edit and distribute their corpus. The local public is non-existent, a reality that has forced the writers to find new strategies to export their creation. Nonetheless, they created an original corpus and strategically sought to defend their own specificity within the Francophone world. In the 1990s, some of them signed with various Canadian editors. Locally they preferred to support the creation of song lyrics for a community who doesn’t read French. Today, this new literature continues its own development, but it remains fragile.

Marteau, Olivier. Licence d’Histoire, University of Orleans, France, Spring 1991; Master in Contemporary History, University of Paris I – La Sorbonne, Spring 1992; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Spring 2007
Major: Francophone Studies
Title of Dissertation: Une littérature minoritaire francophone dans le sud de la Louisiane: Le pari de la création d’un champ littéraire (1980-2006)
Dissertation Directors: Dr. Barry Jean Ancelet and Dr. Fabrice Leroy
Pages in Dissertation: 334; Words in Abstract: 343

http://library.louisiana.edu/