Circus Performers and Popular Media in Fin de Siècle France

The French lecture series hosts a symposium on circus performers and popular media with:

Jennifer Forrest (Texas State U),
Katherine Brion (New College, FL),
Jennifer Lemmer-Posey (Ringling Museum)
Robert Stilling (English, FSU).

Dr. Forrest is the author of Decadent Aesthetics and the Acrobat in Fin de siècle France (Routledge, 2019). Circuses, expositions, and other forms of popular entertainment enchanted Western audiences with exotic peoples from faraway places in the nineteenth century. These entertainments had a profound impact on the way Westerners perceived the peoples of other parts of the world.

The French lecture series will address the different lenses–ethnographic or spectacular, literary, art historical, or postcolonial–through which French-related popular entertainment media were viewed by the public in Europe and America.

The circus holds a distinct place at FSU. FSU’s Flying High Circus is one of two such collegiate circuses in the United States and FSU’s Ringling museum has an extensive collection of circus-related material. Developed in connection with the 45th annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies conference hosted by FSU, the exhibition https://www.ringling.org/events/tour-du-monde is currently on view at the Ringling museum in Sarasota.