Cajun Literature and Cajun Collective Memory (PDF)

How does Cajun literature, emerging in the 1980s, represent the dynamic processes of remembering in Cajun culture?

Known for its hybrid constitution and deeply ingrained oral traditions, Cajun culture provides an ideal testing ground for investigating the collective memory of a group. In particular, francophone and anglophone Cajun texts by such writers as Jean Arceneaux, Tim Gautreaux, Jeanne Castille, Zachary Richard, Ron Thibodeaux, Darrell Bourque, and Kirby Jambon reveal not only a shift from an oral to a written tradition. They also show hybrid perspectives on the Cajun collective memory. Based on recurring references to place, the texts also reflect on the (Acadian) past and reveal the innate ability of the Cajuns to adapt through repeated intertextual references. The Cajun collective memory is thus defined by a transnational outlook, a transversality cutting across various ethnic heritages to establish and legitimize a collective identity both amid the linguistic and cultural diversity in Louisiana, and in the face of American mainstream culture.

Cajun Literature and Cajun Collective Memory represents the first analysis of the mnemonic strategies Cajun writers use to explore and sustain the Cajun identity and collective memory.

Mathilde Köstler, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.