Date of Award

Spring 5-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.F.A.

Degree Program

Creative Writing

Department

English

Major Professor

M. O. Walsh

Second Advisor

Barb Johnson

Third Advisor

Richard Goodman

Abstract

Cherchez les Femmes is a collection of short stories set in 1890s New Orleans. It follows a group of women as they struggle to find their ways in the world and explores how their lives are affected by a visiting circus sideshow, the eponymous “Cherchez les Femmes.” The collection is concerned with the following: women’s bodies as sites of both suffering and liberation; freedoms metaphorical and literal and how such freedoms are often constrained by gender; performance as it relates to gender and the body and the ways in which such performativity is both tribulation and elation. It also just wants to have a good time.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

Available for download on Thursday, May 22, 2025

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Fiction Commons

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