Cajun folklorist Dr. Barry Jean Ancelet will become the first UL Lafayette faculty member to be honored by an invitation to give a “last lecture.”
Ancelet will speak Wednesday at the inaugural installment of the University’s Last Lecture Series. The free talk, which is open to the public, will be held at 3:30 p.m. in Burke-Hawthorne Hall, Room 177.
Ancelet will retire at the end of this semester after teaching for almost 40 years at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
The lecture series recognizes retiring faculty member’s significant contributions to the University and the community, said Dr. Jim Henderson, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.
Ancelet’s “devotion to teaching, scholarship, and community engagement represents the best of what a faculty member can offer, and I know that his last lecture will be memorable for anyone who is lucky enough to be able to attend,” Henderson said.
Ancelet, a native French-speaking Cajun, was born in Church Point, La., and raised in Lafayette. He joined the University in 1977.
He has been director of the Center for Acadian and Creole Folklore, and a professor of francophone studies and folklore. He also chaired the Department of Modern Languages.
Ancelet said his work exploring various aspects of Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole cultures extends beyond courses he taught, or books and films he worked on about subjects ranging from Mardi Gras to language.
He directs Lafayette’s Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, for example, which he helped to establish in 1974.
Ancelet hosted “Rendez-vous des Cadiens,” a live radio show broadcast weekly from the Liberty Theater in Eunice, La., for 24 years.
Under the pseudonym Jean Arceneaux, he has written Cajun French poetry, and lyrics to Cajun French songs.
“It’s a concept I referred to years ago as guerilla academics. It’s sneaking information to people when they least expect it, when they think they’re being entertained,” Ancelet said in a recent interview.
His efforts have been lauded internationally.
Ancelet was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques and Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Both titles are bestowed by the French government in recognition of contributions to culture and education, and to arts and literature, respectively.
“What I’m most proud of, really, are the relationships I have with the people I have been able to work with—the barbers and the welders and the carpenters and the bus drivers and the storytellers and the Mardi Gras runners,” he said. “I’ve learned as much from them as I learned in any classroom.”