Travelling Texts: French Reading Cultures in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1838-1900

In nineteenth-century New Zealand, French language and literature circulated through newspapers, books and cultural spaces, maintaining a French presence in the British colony and exerting soft power through the formation of cultural norms. Imported and established, French cultural dominion fed a complex of circulation: a network of power, material culture, knowledge and connectivity. Using Dr Sydney Shep’s model of Situated Knowledges for Book History to marshal a breadth of sources and by employing Michel Espagne’s concept of ‘transferts culturels’, which examines the transformation of cultural goods in new contexts, this thesis explores the ways that French reading cultures were performed and constructed in New Zealand in service to local needs. From cultural standardisation to individual practice, from Albin Villeval’s reputational rehabilitation to women exerting power in the patriarchy and Edmond de Montalk building capacity in the colony, ‘Travelling texts’ demonstrates the political implications of cultural actions and how relationships to reading material speak to identity, social organisation and power.