Guilbeau Grant Presentation Kicks Off Lunch Series: Jessica Dauterive Discusses Research on Mass Culture and Cajun Identity 1930-1970

The Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette launches the new Brown Bag Lunch presentation series on Friday, January 18, 2019, at 12:30pm in Dupré Library room 221. Admission is free and open to the public. Doctoral student Jessica Dauterive will share findings from her recent research on “’Fais Do-Do Instant Mix’: Mass Culture and Cajun Identity in Louisiana, 1930-1970,” supported by the Jamie Guilbeau and Thelma Guilbeau UL Lafayette Collections Research Grant.

Dauterive is a Ph.D. candidate at George Mason University in Virginia and her dissertation focuses on how Cajuns used radio, records, television, heritage tourism, and folk festivals to shape regional identity on their own terms. Through this periodization, she is working to not only offer a longer history of the Cajun revival, often started in the postwar period, but to connect the cultural work of the Depression-era to that of the Vietnam-era. Her research has brought to both the Center for Louisiana Studies and the University Archives at UL Lafayette to support her inquiry into cultural history and material culture.

The Brown Bag Lunch Series will be held the third Friday of the month beginning at 12:30pm on the UL campus in either Dupré Library room 221 or HL Griffin room 315 throughout the Spring Semester. Mark your calendars for February 15, March 15, and April 26 (off a week due to Good Friday holiday). Presentations highlight recent research in the diverse UL Lafayette archival collections and folklife projects around the state. This free event is open to the public.