Brown, Juliane
Congratulations on passing the Rigororum on 23 October 2013.
Dissertation topic: "Petit Paris en Amérique? - French Theatrical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana"
Scholarship: "Würzburg-Stipendium" of the Graduate School for the Humanities of the University of Würzburg (1 October 2008 - 30 September 2011).
Contact address at the University of Würzburg:
Chair of American English and American Literature and Culture
Institute of Modern Languages
University of Würzburg
Am Hubland
D-97074 Würzburg
First supervisor: Prof. Dr Jochen Achilles
Second supervisors:
Prof Dr Alfred Hornung (University of Mainz)
Class in the Graduate School: "Philosophy, Languages, Arts"
Doctorate in the Graduate School since WS 2008/2009.
Abstract:
In the conflicted space of Louisiana, where opposing cultural forces enhanced and resisted political and social changes, the vibrant theatre scene of nineteenth-century New Orleans functioned as a steady focal point for people from all social and ethnic walks of life. Nevertheless, the theatres also represented sites of struggle over cultural sovereignty and acted as a 'stage' for negotiating ethnic identities.
In my dissertation I examine how ethnic differences between the dominating anglophone culture and the older, francophone tradition in Louisiana were (re-) negotiated permanently in and around theatre. I am primarily interested in identifying how the French-language theatre of Louisiana adopts, reinvents, integrates, or excludes elements of French and American theatrical culture and how this affects the larger trajectory of nineteenth- century American drama. Focusing on an in-depth analysis of the plays by five of the most important francophone Louisiana playwrights, Auguste Lussan, Louis Placide Canonge, Charles Oscar Dugué, P.E. Pérennès, and Victor Séjour, my dissertation traces the francophone theatre of Louisiana from its beginnings in the late eighteenth century until 1861, when the most important French playhouse of New Orleans, the Théâtre d'Orléans, had to close its doors forever.
Conceiving of the theatre of New Orleans as a medium of cultural self-reflection in a space in which differences are constantly (re-)negotiated, the dissertation situates the francophone drama within a larger framework of theoretical debates initiated in literary, cultural and theatre studies. It can thus describe the status of the francophone cultural production and its relevance for the continued existence of the French community in Louisiana, and its legacy on the North American continent.
