Interculturalité: la Louisiane au carrefour des cultures ed. by Nathalie Dessens and Jean-Pierre Le GLaunec

Abstract

Reviewed by: Interculturalité: la Louisiane au carrefour des cultures ed. by Nathalie Dessens and Jean-Pierre Le GLaunec Erica Johnson Dessens, Nathalie and Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, eds. — Interculturalité: la Louisiane au carrefour des cultures. Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2016. Pp. 370. Edited by Nathalie Dessens and Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, this interdisciplinary volume grew out of two 2012 conferences on Louisiana's cultural history. This is not the first volume on Louisiana to utilize the notion of carrefour (crossroads) as a framework. In 2014, Cécile Vidal edited a collection, titled Louisiana: Crossroads of the Atlantic World, which approached Louisiana as a crossroads of three empires. In fact, Le Glaunec as well as three other contributors to this volume also authored chapters for Vidal's collection. However, Dessens and Le Glaunec seek to use the term differently. In their introduction, the editors explain that their reasons for using the term crossroads are twofold. First, they use it heuristically. In this way, they explain that Louisiana should not be prejudged, as "it can be a little 'creole' and very Atlantic (or the inverse) or neither one nor the other … a geographic and cultural reality, where the flux can be visible or not … and the flux continually varies with time and space" (p. 2). Second, they use it to engage historiographically. The editors identify three significant trends within Louisiana's historiography in recent years. The first of these historiographical moments was the focus on race in Louisiana's colonial history that began in the 1990s. The next moment was the development of Atlantic history in the 2000s. The last moment, currently underway, emphasizes diverse voices within a renewed narrative that explores "new concepts and new objects, in particular within an interdisciplinary perspective" (p. 6). Therefore, the editors brought together contributions from three scholarly perspectives: history, American studies, and linguistics. The thirteen body chapters offer perspectives of Louisiana as a crossroads through studies of material culture, identity politics, commemorations, religion, language, and music. While the table of contents is not divided into sections, the editors suggest loose groupings of the chapters in their introduction. Indeed, the broad temporal scope—almost three hundred years—of the volume makes distinct groupings difficult. Chronologically organized, there are two discernible divisions in the first half of the volume. The first three chapters focus on the colonial period, and chapters four through eight cover the nineteenth century. However, the remaining chapters do not cleanly fit within either of these parts. Chapters nine, ten, and eleven are linguistic studies. The final two chapters examine Louisiana in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Sylvia Frey, Sophie White, and Alexandre Dubé authored the three chapters on the eighteenth century. Focusing on the stories of the chevalier de Pradel and free man of color La Nuit, Frey portrays New Orleans as an Atlantic site for the mixing of European, Caribbean, and African cultures. She explores the continual transformation of culture, particularly through cuisine. White examines the racialization of material culture in the Ursuline convent in New Orleans. Through the story of Métis sister Marie Turpin, she reveals how the particularities of religious clothing reflected a racial hierarchy within the convent. Dubé also examines the importance of material culture in Louisiana's history. He focuses on [End Page 167] the role of a particular fabric, limbourg, in maintaining commercial and political alliances between the French and Indians along the Mississippi River. Marieke Polfliet, Nathalie Dessens, Rien T. Fertel, Genviève Piché, and Olivier Cabanac contributed chapters on the nineteenth century. Polfliet, Dessens, and Cabanac each provide analyses of the hybridization of political and cultural identity in Louisiana. Polfliet examines New Orleans as a crossroads of populations and political culture among exiles from France, immigrants from Canada, and refugees from Saint-Domingue from 1803 to 1815, with a particular interest in the influence of their French origins. She emphasizes the uniqueness in Louisiana's transition from a monarchy to the republic, under the United States, without a revolution. Dessens highlights a hybridized identity through examining celebrations, such as George Washington's birthday, the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, and Carnival. She explains, "The French saw...