Apr 19
Queen of Diamonds: A comic book about a Black Madam in Jim Crow New Orleans
Wed, April 19, 2023
• 5:15pm
- 6:30pm (1h 15m) • Weitz 230
For their graphic novel project, Stephanie and Nathalie have been on the trail of Lulu White, a woman born in Alabama who made her fortune in New Orleans' red light district selling "sex across the color line" to wealthy white men. Their work retraces her life and depicts the gender and racial politics of the Jim Crow era. Her "palace of sin" was one of many spaces that witnessed the birth of Jazz. Their project addresses the historical and current debates around sex work.
Bios on authors
Stephanie Cox has been at Carleton since 2007 and she teaches in the French & Francophone Studies Department and the Cross-Cultural Studies Department. She studied in Quebec and Louisiana and taught about Marginality in French-speaking North America. She published about cross-cultural writers in Canada, France and the Indian Ocean. In 2013, she began collaborating as an illustrator on graphic novels that explore biographical narratives.
Nathalie Rech lives in Montreal, Canada. She is a PhD candidate in history and her dissertation documents the experiences of African American women incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary during Jim Crow. She previously worked in community organizations doing advocacy work on the issues of poverty, housing and homelessness. Her interests in feminism and history brought her to research and to write about women who have often been forgotten in history.
Event Contact: Anna Hagen