Conference

Aimée Boutin : Louisa Siefert's Travels to the Pyrénées

From March 22, 2021 to March 24, 2021

Society of Dix-Neuviémistes - 19th annual conference - Heritages/Counter-Cultures -
University of St Andrews (United Kingdom)

The extensive archive of Louisa Siefert’s letters and manuscripts at the Beinecke Library provides rich documentation from which to contextualize her poetry and to understand how mobility shaped her writing.

Siefert traveled to spa towns such as Aix-les-Bains, Royat, and Pau in repeated attempts to treat her tuberculosis. Her unpublished letters and poems written during her first trip to Pau provide insight into her impressions of the railway journey at a historical moment (1860s-1870s) when train travel in France was still a novel experience.

Illustration : Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France

Amée Boutin has taught French and Francophone studies at Florida State University since 1998 and is a 2020-2021 fellow at the Collegium de Lyon.