Richard Bienvenu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D., Harvard University
areas: Modern France, European intellectual history
office: 112 Read Hall
phone: 573-882-9463
email: bienvenur@missouri.edu

B.A., Southwestern Louisiana Institute
M.A., University of North Carolina
Ph.D., Harvard

Professor Richard Bienvenu received his primary and secondary schooling on the banks of Bayou Teche, first from the Sisters of Mercy in St. Martinville and then, 15 miles downstream, from the Christian Brothers in New Iberia.

After receiving his B.A. from Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now University of Louisiana-Lafayette) he moved north by degrees: M.A., University of North Carolina and Ph. D., Harvard (1965).

At Missouri he teaches the history of the French Revolution, 18th-century European intellectual history and, a new course: "Cajuns and Creoles: The French in Louisiana."

His publications include The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction (1971, with Jonathan Beecher), and most recently a translation of Philippe Perrot's Les Dessous et les Dessus de la Bourgeoisie which appeared as Fashioning the Bourgeoisie (Princeton University Press, 1994,and, in paperback, 1996).

His research is now centered on the colonial and early American period of the Attakapas District of his native south Louisiana, with a special emphasis on family reconstitution based on the sacramental records of Saint-Martin de Tours church.

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Professor Bienvenu

book jacket
Fashioning the Bourgeoisie