Rendez-vous de l'Alliance with Catharine Savage Brosman

Fictional Evocations of Creole New Orleans, Old and New 

For our February Rendez-vous de l’Alliance, we’re welcoming author and scholar, Catharine Savage Brosman. 

This event is completely free and open to the public and will be in English

Catharine Savage Brosman, known widely in American letters for her poetry, criticism, and essays, is Professor Emerita of French at Tulane University.  She is the author of fourteen poetry collections; the most recent is Arm in Arm (2022).  Her scholarly fields are modern French literary history and regional American literature.  Among her studies in the latter area are Louisiana Creole Literature: A Historical Study (201) and Louisiana Poets: A Literary Guide (2020).  Starting in 1968, she lived in New Orleans for nearly forty years. Now she is a part-time resident, having bought a condominium in The Carol on St. Charles, around the corner from the Alliance Française.  

About the presentation:

From the early 1800s onward, certain themes, motifs, and historical materials (weather, characters, events, mores, city layout, buildings) have characterized literary depictions of New Orleans, both Francophone and Anglophone.  Racial matters are, perforce, often central.   Authors of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries have built on inherited materials, often giving them original tones and features.  New Orleans may be simply a setting or background; or it may be nearly an actor, an agent.  This talk will identify selected figures among the most interesting who have written about New Orleans and note what is most striking in their work.  My own fiction set in the city will illustrate how certain elements of the literary tradition are still visible today.  

Bibliography

• C. S. Brosman, Louisiana Creole Literature: A Historical Study (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013)
• C. S. Brosman and O. M. Pass, Louisiana Poets: A Literary Guide (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019)
• C. S. Brosman, An Aesthetic Education and Other Stories (Columbia, SC: Green Altar Books, 2019; new and enlarged edition, 2022).