The largest event of its type ever hosted by the French section of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in Arts & Sciences, it will take place at several locations on the Hilltop Campus and at the Clayton Radisson Hotel.

"This conference is the best-known and most influential annual gathering of 19th-century French literary and cultural-studies scholars from throughout the world," said Stamos Metzidakis, Ph.D., professor of French and the colloquium coordinator.

"As such, its occurring here in this bicentennial year of the Louisiana Purchase's aftermath and the Lewis and Clark expedition will bring increased academic visibility both to the University and to the entire St. Louis area, through its thematic focus on the rich French colonial heritage of our region."

The conference is sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Committee on Comparative Literature, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, L'Alliance Française de St. Louis and Les Amis.

Metzidakis will lead a roundtable discussion, titled "Echoes from Upper Louisiana," with well-known local historians of Mississippi French Colonial society.

Seth Graebner, Ph.D., assistant professor of French, also will speak at the conference. His talk, "Saint Brazza: A Colonial Hagiography," will focus on St. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza (1852-1905).

Attendees are coming from Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Duke, Pennsylvania and Princeton universities, among others, as well as from French and Canadian schools.

"Those attending this conference will benefit enormously from the ongoing research and findings of hundreds of people who work on important aspects of 19th-century French culture, which have affected, and continue to affect, life in North America in so many domains, like literature, education, philosophy, politics, law, art, music and architecture," Metzidakis said.

For more information, including a full schedule, go online to artsci.wustl.edu/~rll/rll.