Gallouδt Publishes on Marriage, Law
4 March 2014 Gallout Publishes on Marriage, Law
Professor of French and Francophone Studies Catherine Gallout has published on marriage and the law in 18th century fiction. Her essay titled, Mariage legitimite et differences du roman aux chroniques sur Hati, (Marriage, legitimacy and difference from the novel to chronicles on Haiti) is a chapter in the book, Le mariage et la loi dans la fiction narrative avant 1800, (Marriage and Law in Narrative Fiction before 1800), published by Peeters in Louvain, Belgium. This chapter is part of a wider project on the cultural representations of the non-Europeans in the French 18th century.
The essay shows how the happy end that is marriage in narrative fiction is only possible for culturally legitimate characters, thus excluding foreign origins, unworthy social position or racial difference. Before the French Revolution, when citizenship was being redefined, this trend in fiction points to the exclusion of the non-European, non-white and the poor from legitimate citizenship.
A member of the HWS staff since 1986, Gallout received her doctorate and masters from Rutgers University, her B.A. cum laude from Hope and her Bacalaureat, with honors, from Academie de Grenoble. She was the initiator of HWSs French study abroad programs. She is chair of the French and Francophone Studies department and the recipient of the 2014-15 John R. & Florence B. Kinghorn Global Fellowship.