You’d be forgiven for wondering what a show about Acadiana business would be doing examining biographies. Or boxing. And especially biographies and boxing on the same show.
Because you’re human, you’re pre-disposed to look for a link between subjects. To try and make order out of chaos. The chaos of ordinary – or extraordinary – life, when we look back at it, becomes history.
But the process of ordering and recording history is not straightforward. It’s a messy business. It’s full of mixed and conflicting perspectives. It’s subject to revision — for the right or wrong reasons. And while it’s tempting to think of it as a collection of facts, history is really a collection of perspectives.
This holds especially true for histories of people. Think about it: there are competing biographies, or authorized biographies, even unauthorized biographies – and, of course, autobiographies.
Christiaan’s guests on this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both writers of history.
The Biographer and The Boxer
Biographer and Historian, Jason Theriot
Jason Theriot is a freelance author, a New Iberia native, and an academic. He’s written on a number of subjects, not just about people, including World War II histories and works about the environment, particularly the Gulf Coast. Jason is a former fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School where he worked on Environmental Policy. He’s currently working on a history of tank barges.
Boxer and Autobiographer, Deirdre Gogarty
Deirdre Gogarty Morrison wrote her own history. She published an autobiography about her career as a boxer called “My Call to the Ring.”
Deirdre was born and raised in Ireland and moved to Lafayette to work with the legendary boxing coach Beau Williford. Irish law prohibited women from boxing professionally but that didn’t deter Deirdre. She was to become Ireland’s first women’s world champion and has been inducted into the international women’s boxing hall of fame.
Deidre is retired from professional bouts now and spends her boxing time coaching both men and women.
Jason Theriot, Christiaan Mader, Deirdre Gogarty
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette. Photos by Lucius Fontenot.
Find out more about extraordinary Acadiana women in sports here.
