The schedule for the 2014-2015 Franco-American Centre’s Speaker Series includes the following speakers and topics.

All lectures will be held at the NH Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester NH, on Wednesdays at 7:30 PM.

September 10, 2014
Francis X. Galvin and Vern Taylor will speak on La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux (commonly known as the “40 & 8”) and the “Merci Box Car,”  which is preserved by the Society on  Manchester’s West Side.  This is in anticipation of the annual Celebration of Remembrance of the Merci Train which will be held on Sunday afternoon, September 21.   The Gratitude Train came to America in 1949 as a sign of thanks from the people and regions of France for its postwar rebuilding assistance.

November 12, 2014
Attorney Scott Eaton will speak on “Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Man who Wrote Le Petit Prince.” Saint-Exupéry was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator during a period when flying machines were made of sticks and fabric. He became a laureate of several of France’s highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book award.  He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince, beloved by generations of both children and adults and one of the top-selling books of all time.  This talk is offered through the cooperation of the New Hampshire Humanities Council.

January 14, 2015
Laurence Armand French, PhD, will speak about his newly published book, Frog Town – Portrait of a French Canadian Parish in New England (University Press of America).  The book is a geopolitical-historical study of “French-Canadians in Yankee Land,” focusing on the Parish of St. Jean Baptiste in Suncook, New Hampshire.  Dr. French is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Western New Mexico University, and is a Researcher and Affiliate Professor at Justiceworks, a research and development group in Justice Studies in the College of Liberal Arts of the University of New Hampshire.

March 11, 2015
Aurore Dionne Eaton will speak on “The French & Indian War – Rogers’ Rangers and the Local Derryfield (Manchester) Connection.”   The talk will provide an overview of the war, focusing particularly on the local New Hampshire men who served in the irregular British unit, Rogers’ Rangers. In particular, it will look at the roles these men played in the war, including taking part in the burning of Quebec farms in 1759 prior to the Battle of Quebec.  Aurore Eaton is the former Executive Director of the Manchester Historic Association and of the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Historical Society, and is a well-known local historian and columnist.

May 13, 2015
Kelley E. Spoerl, PhD, with speak on “Women in the Early Mission to New France,” focusing on several extraordinary women who were involved in the early settlement, development and Christianization of French Canada in the seventeenth century.  Dr. Spoerl is Professor of Theology at Saint Anselm College and received her doctoral degree from the University of Toronto.

Check the calendar for up-to-date details of the Speaker Series.

Title: Who and Where Did We Come from: Our Faith, Heraldry, and Tradition – A Franco-American Time Line

Speaker: Kevin C. Roy

Date: Tuesday, May 20 at 7:30pm

Location: The West Wing conference room, New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Saint Anselm College

Kevin C. Roy holds Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and a Master of Arts in Theology from St. John’s Seminary Boston. He is a Deputy Sheriff at the Lowell Community Corrections Center. Since 2011, he has been President of the Franco-American Day Committee in Lowell, Massachusetts. Kevin is married with four children, and has lived in North Billerica, Massachusetts, for 45 years.

His general interests include the French monarchy and its history, French medieval religion, and polyphonic music. His special interests are French-Canadian/Franco-American history, culture, music, and traditional dance, as well as French religious and secular heraldic symbols, and Vexillology (study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags) .

Kevin’s talk will cover topics such as: Are we losing our French-ness? Do we need a better understanding of Je me souviens!, Quebec’s official motto? What do we know about our Franco-American heritage and culture? How did our traditional faith become an integral part of what defines French, French-Canadian, or Franco-American?

To quote Kevin, “What have we ‘known’ all our lives, but never understood or knew its origins? Most of us have probably taken it all for granted. I propose that we say Je me souviendrai! and get back on track.”

Title: Completing the Full Circle: Bretons and Franco-Americans Perpetuating the Future of Their Past

Speaker: C. Wakaba Futamura

Date: Tuesday, March 11 at 7:00pm

Location: New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP), Saint Anselm College

This talk will consist of a comparative study of how Bretons and Franco-Americans are perpetuating their heritage and subsequently completing the full circle: Bretons in preserving their regional language and identity in France and Franco-Americans in maintaining their linguistic, religious, and cultural traditions in New England.

The talk will be given in English.

C. Wakaba Futamura is an Assistant Professor of French at Saint Anselm College. Her research focus is on twentieth and twenty-first century French and Francophone studies with a special interest in the Maghreb.

Katherine Labombarde will present a slide show and observations from her recent semester in Marseille and Morocco, studying French and Arabic affairs and languages through the American University Center of Provence.

When: January 5, 2014 (Sunday)
Time: 3:00pm
Where: Perini Lecture Hall in the Goulet Science Center, Saint Anselm College

Katherine Merritt Labombarde, a native of Nashua, is a senior at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with a major in International Affairs and minors in French and Arabic.  She is a 2010 graduate of Bishop Guertin High School, where she received the school’s Class of 2010 French Award.  She was the recipient of the Cercle Jeanne Mance Scholarship and the Wilfred J. Anctil Foundation Scholarship.  In 2011, she served as a summer Library Assistant at Saint Anselm College and assisted efforts to organize and catalogue the Franco-American Archival Collection at the Geisel Library.

Maurice Daneau

Subject: Tales of the French migration from France to New France, then to New England

Speaker: Maurice Daneau

When: Tuesday, November 12, from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Where: Conference Room, Dana Center, Saint Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire

Cost: Event is free and open to the public. Coffee and cookies will be served.

Maurice Daneau holds a BA degree in French Studies from Saint Anselm College. He lives in Goffstown, New Hampshire, and grew up on Manchester, New Hampshire’s West Side. During the evening, he will discuss the French migration from France to New France, then to New England.

Maurice is well versed on the subject and will supplement his presentation with historical and humorous accounts of the French experience in North America. He is, indeed, a Raconteur par Excellence.