Barry Jean Ancelet is Professor Emeritus of Francophone Studies and Center for Louisiana Studies Research Fellow at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He has given many papers and published numerous articles and several books on various aspects of Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole cultures and languages. He is part of the research team that produced the Dictionary of Louisiana French as Spoken in Cajun, Creole and American Indian Communities (2009). He is a Chevalier in France’s Palmes Académiques and in France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a member of Quebec’s Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique, a Fellow of the American Folklore Society, and was the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Humanist of the Year in 2009.
His alter ego, Jean Arceneaux, has produced several collections of French poetry and short fiction, as well as song lyrics and plays.