Celebrating a Centennial of Indigenous American Study

Marcello Canuto, Director of the Middle American Research Institute & Professor of Anthropology, and Quinn Armstrong, Senior Communications Specialist in Advancement

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

Canuto showcases artifacts from the MARI archives.

A hundred years later, what has been the effect of a donor's gift? The Middle American Research Institute (MARI) has been conducting and sponsoring influential ethnographic, historical, linguistic, and archaeological research in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador since its establishment in 1924. Through field research, publication, student training, and the establishment of a world-renowned museum collection. MARI has made a significant impact on the scholarship of indigenous cultures of Middle America. Thanks to the tireless efforts of innumerable scholars, the Institute has consolidated its status amongst the most esteemed research institutes focusing on indigenous Middle America.

“A century ago, Tulane acknowledged that Indigenous America had a complex and rich history that was important and worthy of serious and targeted academic interest,” said Marcello A. Canuto, MARI director and Tulane archaeologist, who specializes in Maya archaeology. “Thanks to a significant donation, Tulane founded the Middle American Research Institute to advance the study of indigenous America in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. As MARI marks its centennial, we will continue our commitment to the study of ancient indigenous American peoples and their accomplishments.” - MARCELLO CANUTO 

A Timeline of MARI’s History

1924

Thanks to an endowment from Samuel Zemurray, Tulane establishes the Department of Middle American Research (later renamed MARI) to house the William Edmund Gate’s library, which eventually seeded the creation of the Latin American Library decades later. William Gates becomes the Institute’s first director.

1926

Frans Blom becomes the Institute’s second director.

1933

Frans Blom travels with a team to Uxmal, Yucatán, to make molds of the Nunnery Quadrangle architectural complex. The molds were displayed at the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition (World’s Fair), exhibiting the zenith of late Maya art and architecture to an eager United States public for the first time.

1930's

MARI participates in the first aerial survey of the Maya region.

1938

With a growing anthropological collection, an expanded library, and a new publication series, the Department of Middle American Research changes its name to the Middle American Research Institute.

1942

Robert Wauchope becomes MARI’s third director.

1947

Robert Wauchope becomes a member of the Committee on Latin American Studies at Tulane to develop an educational program on Latin American Studies in collaboration with Vanderbilt, University of Texas, and North Carolina. This initiative eventually gives birth to the Stone Center for Latin American Studies.

1970s

E. Wyllys Andrews V becomes MARI’s fourth director.

1980

Roland Scott Hall endowment is established to support MARI’s research initiatives.

1983

Robert Wauchope endowment is established for publications in Middle American Anthropology in MARI.

1990's

MARI Director E. Wyllys Andrews V directs the Copán Acropolis Archaeological Project. Copán is one of the most important archaeological complexes in the ancient Maya world, and the long-running project sparks important breakthroughs involving dynastic sequences, epigraphy, and chronologies.

2009

Marcello A. Canuto becomes the Institute’s fifth director.

2012

Maria Luisa De Ajubita Franklin Endowed Fund at MARI is established for graduate students in Anthropology to conduct field research in Mexico and Central America.

2013

Yvonne Effinger celebrates the remarkable impact a MARI education had on the life of her husband, Lt. Col. Clinton “Clint” Effinger III, by making a gift to enhance the stewardship of its artifact collections. With her support, priceless historical collections, including Aleutian objects donated by Clint, are protected from damaging UV and infrared light — securing them for generations of future scholars.

2019

A gift from the Hitz Foundation helps create MARI’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab, which analyzes and computes archeological data. This lab uses lidar remote sensing technology, which enables MARI to gather highly precise data over large vegetation-covered areas, uncovering exciting new discoveries. MARI Director Marcello A. Canuto and Tulane Research Professor Francisco Estrada-Belli were part of a team that discovered dozens of ancient cities in Guatemala, including some 60,000 structures, with this innovative technology.

2024

The Hitz Foundation builds upon its previous cutting-edge grant with a $1.5 million gift, further increasing the ability of MARI’s GIS Lab to use lidar technology to conduct archaeological research. Thanks in part to the forward-thinking philanthropy of the Hitz Foundation, MARI became an early leader in this mapmaking technology.

The Clinton and Yvonne Effinger Excellence Endowed Fund was created by their family to help MARI build on its century of trailblazing scholarship and lead the way in Maya archaeology for another 100 years.

2024 / 2025

MARI begins a new collaboration with the Universidad del Valle and the US State Department to systematically train members of various community-based forestry concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) of Guatemala to conduct archeological resource management using modern technology. Community members will be trained to use lidar data, digital maps, and advanced survey methods to record archaeological sites in two different forestry concessions. With these tools, local stakeholders will be able to accurately and efficiently record cultural resources in their concessions. Aside from boosting the archaeological understanding of this understudied portion of the MBR, this training will also allow local communities to examine and report on the amount and impact of looting on the cultural resources located in their concessions. This partnership of archaeologists, government officials, and local stakeholders is unique to the MBR and will result in a protocol for long-term preventive protection measures, as well as the formation of a cadre of technicians trained to register and evaluate cultural heritage. This project is designed to be scalable and transferable to other forest concessions in the MBR.

On Advocating for Democracy in Venezuela

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

What can I, as a sociologist specializing in culture and politics, do to intervene in the ongoing crisis in Venezuela?

We normally think of scholars analyzing such conflicts and their resolution years, decades, or centuries after the fact. But there is indeed a role in the present. Political actors rarely have the time to take inventory of what has happened and put it in the context of larger bodies of knowledge, but scholars have the space to do so. Moreover, when scholarly work is paired with an effective media engagement strategy, they can put forward arguments that can both convince political actors and perhaps more importantly, shape the environment to which they respond — including the questions that journalists ask and demands that citizens make.

The government of Nicolás Maduro initiated a presidential election on July 28 hoping it would help Maduro gain the legitimacy he has lacked since the rigged elections of 2018. Instead, it has pushed Venezuela into a new political crisis that continues to unfold. This complicated situation represents significant progress and dynamism from where Venezuela was only a year or two ago when Maduro was progressively consolidating his authoritarian hold on the country. My research and advocacy during my 10 years at Tulane has focused on the Venezuela crisis, and I have worked with scholars, civil society groups, and diplomats to facilitate a negotiated solution.

Venezuela has been in a state of almost continual conflict during the 25 years since Hugo Chávez became president in 1999. Chávez, who sought to revolutionize Venezuelan society and make it more democratic, egalitarian, and participatory, was reelected in 2006, declaring that Venezuela was in a transition to socialism. Flush with oil resources, he invested in everything from infrastructural projects to participatory budgeting. However, without a clear commitment to transparency and accountability, many of these resources were misspent or lost to corruption. And with an inflated currency and price controls, the non-oil domestic economy suffered.

When Chávez died in April 2013, his designated successor Maduro faced the challenge of managing a government and coalition made in Chavez’s image, without the resources — the oil price steadily dropped after 2013 — and without Chávez’s charisma. He did so by using a highly centralized state apparatus to repress opposition to his rule. He brutally repressed protests in 2014 and 2017, canceled a recall referendum in 2016, and manipulated the 2018 presidential election to such a degree that the opposition boycotted, and most Western democracies did not recognize it. When Maduro tried to begin his second term in January 2019, the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared the presidency vacant. They, in turn, installed National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as the interim president, and he was recognized by the U.S. and most other Western democracies. The U.S. also levied significant economic sanctions that have had an important impact on Venezuela’s economic decline. In the past 10 years, around 20 percent of Venezuela’s population, over 7 million people, have left the country, fleeing miserable conditions and an endless political conflict.

Years of research in political sociology show that acute conflict generates and is furthered by strong centripetal forces that keep actors from engaging in politics. Actors in conflict gain more from rallying their bases and dehumanizing their opponents than from pursuing the interests of those they represent and negotiating with their adversaries. Over 25 years, Chavismo — the movement begun by the late President Hugo Chávez and continued by Maduro — has portrayed itself as a revolution destined to save Venezuela, and its opponents as a conspiring elite in cahoots with imperial powers. The political opposition has portrayed themselves as heroic democrats and Chavismo as illegitimate, incompetent, and corrupt. In these circumstances, each side reviles the possibility of negotiating with their treacherous “other” and labels those who do as traitors.

In such a context, international engagement can be key. In 2017 I wrote several newspaper opinion pieces and testified in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee advocating for a multi-lateral effort, not including the U.S., that would engage the Maduro government in support of a return to democracy in Venezuela. That same year, the Lima Group of countries in the region was formed. However, rather than a “group of friends” it quickly became a group of adversaries strongly criticizing the government in non-diplomatic — if not inaccurate — terms. In 2018 and 2019, my colleagues and I argued against U.S. military involvement and for European engagement of Venezuela — thinking they would be in a better position than the U.S. to engage the Maduro government and facilitate a return to democracy. In 2019 the International Contact Group was formed from the European Union, in collaboration with several Latin American countries. This group had an important impact in promoting and laying the groundwork for negotiations. But it was the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that took on negotiations in earnest. Working with colleagues, especially at the Washington Office on Latin America, I had a hand in advising them on Venezuela and the evolution of the conflict.

I wrote a series of pieces with one of the legends of the field of political transitions, Abraham Lowenthal, emeritus professor at the University of Southern California. We worked together to apply the classic insights of the scholarship on democratic transitions to the Venezuela case. It is common for people living in authoritarian contexts to think that nothing like what they are living has ever happened before and therefore all previous solutions are irrelevant. To a certain extent, they are correct. Every authoritarian context has its own unique character and details. And there exist no recipes for how to fight authoritarianism. However, there are strong commonalities between these contexts and a pretty consistent set of strategies that have been used to confront them.

Actors in conflict gain more from rallying their bases and dehumanizing their opponents than from pursuing the interests of those they represent and negotiating with their adversaries.

Smilde testifies on Venezuela before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

One of the key strategies is to participate in elections even when they are unfair. This can be a hard sell in a context such as Venezuela, which for more than 50 years enjoyed a solid electoral democracy. However, the research is clear that electoral boycotts tend to only strengthen authoritarians and demobilize opposition movements. In contrast, participating in elections and denouncing their abuses every step of the way puts an authoritarian government on the defensive. In the best case, it can lead to a “stunning election” in which an opposition wins, despite the odds. In any case, it can degrade and demoralize the authoritarian coalition and set in motion processes of change.

On this point the Venezuelan opposition has long been divided with a consistent coalition believing elections were the way forward and another coalition promoting abstention. Depending on the character of the historical conjuncture, one or the other side has dominated. As recently as 2020 the opposition boycotted legislative elections. In 2021 they participated even while working to suppress turnout since a good showing did not fit with their more immediate political aspirations.

In research carried out with a then Tulane student, Rowan Scarpino (SLA ’23), we showed that the capacity of the U.S. to impact the Maduro government is quite limited. And indeed, despite the Biden administration’s efforts, the Maduro government did not actually behave much different this year over the last presidential election in 2018 — it manipulated the electoral playing field in similar ways. The influence the U.S. does have in Venezuela is more over the opposition. The Biden administration made clear it wanted them to go to an election and that it would not undertake another regime change initiative. As a result of this and their own learning process facilitated by public debate, the opposition responded to each obstacle placed in their path by reconfiguring and continuing forward and maintaining a unified electoral strategy.

There is still much to be done to return Venezuela’s conflict into the space of democratic institutions. But public scholarship has played an important role in pushing this process forward and will continue to do so.

Environment Up Close

Nathaniel Rich, Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies

Of all the transformations to campus life since my last day as a college student, the second-most dramatic to me was the surging interest in a program that didn’t formally exist 20 years ago: environmental studies. (The most dramatic? Food-delivery robots.)

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

Readers over 30 might ask the same question I asked upon being appointed as a visiting professor of environmental studies: What is environmental studies? It’s a reasonable question. As I soon learned, universities across the country have been asking it themselves, with increasing urgency.

I had been aware, from visits to college campuses over the last decade, of a growing mutiny within the humanities disciplines. It was often expressed as a frustration with the blithe manner in which climate change was discussed — or altogether ignored — in the classroom. 

Why was this subject of all subjects, the issue of greatest existential significance to this generation of students, encountered so sparingly, and superficially? Where, asked humanities students, were the great climate novels, histories, and works of art? A corresponding question was posed in the earth sciences: Why did so few non-scientists seem to understand the nightmarish ramifications of the data they analyzed every day in the lab?

I recognized in these questions my own frustrations with the ways we have come to write, and think, about environmental crisis — frustrations that have driven my fiction and nonfiction over the last dozen years. The fundamental information was well understood, after all. Journalists have been explaining for decades now the public story of climate change: the political story, the scientific story, and the economic story.

But what about the human story? What is the specter of climate change doing to us? What does it mean to live at a time when each year is the warmest year on record, and the coldest year of the rest of our lives? How does the knowledge of what’s already upon us, and what’s to come, change the way we navigate the world? How does it shape the way we plan for the future? How does it inform the decisions we make about what kind of work we want to do, where we want to live, and whether we want to have children?

Such questions lack easy — which is to say, objective — answers. This makes them the kinds of questions that the arts are uniquely capable of examining. Art is, by nature, subjective — partial, emotional, and allergic to grand proclamations. It does not traffic in “takeaways” or “angles.” It offers, instead, paths to deeper reflection, and scrutiny — especially self-scrutiny. It helps us to know ourselves. 

The first step to defining the Environmental Studies Program (EVST) is to isolate what it is not: an environmental science course or degree. We desperately need a new generation of scientists capable of taking on the novel challenges of this age. But we also need scholars who can grapple with the societal implications. Our classes in environmental studies serve students who want to understand how these great crises operate on the soul, as well as on our culture, politics, and economy.

It is difficult to think of a university better situated to serve as the home for a robust center of environmental studies than Tulane, situated as it is in the American city that, by many measures, is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We are a few miles downriver from the concentration of petrochemical plants now internationally known as “Cancer Alley,” occupying the former plantation grounds that lined the lower Mississippi River. We are in a city that has survived many existential threats and that understands more will continue to come, as often as every hurricane season.

We’ve entered a strange time, one that will not only be dominated by catastrophe but also by uncanny wonders: the decay of great cities and landscapes, climate migration and rewilding, the abandonment of poisoned territories and the engineering of artificial ecosystems. The great transition now underway offers us an enormous challenge, and an opportunity. Students at Tulane now have a unique opportunity to mediate between these public, global crises and our private lives. How do we preserve our humanity in an increasingly alien world? Serious, imaginative, uninhibited inquiry is sorely needed to help us through. We may not know what the future holds, but we can try to know ourselves.

Political Economy Alum Advocates
for Children
in Ukraine

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

Our mission is to ensure no child is left alone with the experience of war.

An alert came across my phone the morning of July 8: “Incoming ballistics, seek shelter.” I hurried down the hallway of my Kyiv apartment, the walls trembling as Patriot missiles intercepted the incoming Russian strike. I rushed outside, where black smoke clouds enveloped the city, and found refuge in the underground metro. Once the explosions subsided, I made my way to work, arriving just in time for our morning meeting — as if it were any other Monday.

Since graduating in 2023, I’ve been living in Kyiv and working in partnership development for Voices of Children, a Ukrainian nonprofit dedicated to providing psychological and psychosocial support to children and their families. Our mission is to ensure no child is left alone with the experience of war by protecting, empowering, and advocating for Ukrainian children. As the only native English speaker, I manage international fundraising development and donor relations, ensuring effective communication with our English-speaking partners. My role has encompassed everything from writing grant reports for major donors to representing our organization at key global events — including the Council of Europe — all to amplify the voices of Ukraine’s most vulnerable.

After my first visit in 2015, my connection to Ukraine grew during a 2018 visit to a summer camp for children affected by the Donbas war. Spending time with kids my age and hearing their stories of loss and trauma profoundly impacted me. My experiences in Ukraine inspired me to shift my studies from Social Policy & Practice to Political Economy with an International Perspectives concentration.

During that same semester, I took Professor Marcus Coleman’s Global Food Economy course and analyzed Ukraine’s agricultural commodities, exploring the invasion’s impact on food security. The project led me to spend the summer of 2022 in Ukraine, delivering humanitarian aid and studying food distribution systems. Working with local groups across the country gave me life-changing insights into Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Throughout my senior year, I continued to study Ukraine and the war through the liberal arts curriculum, from Walter Isaacson’s Digital Revolution class to Digital Photography. Integrating Ukraine into class projects deepened my understanding of international conflicts and helped develop the skills I use in my work today.

Every visitor to Voices of Children’s office in Kyiv is greeted by photographs of my colleagues as children, with the caption, “We were all children once.” Seeing the display on tough mornings like July 8 reminds me of the many children seeking help at our centers. I think of our psychologists in Kharkiv, who continue to provide essential support even under constant threat and wearing body armor. I recall the stories shared by returned Ukrainian children of uncertain journeys home from deportation, navigating minefields and gunfire. I am inspired by the vision of our founders and the dedication of my colleagues, whose belief that every Ukrainian deserves a childhood has supported some 103,000 beneficiaries — and counting.

Documentary Filmmaking Inspires a Return to Greece

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

BRITTANY FOWLER, in conversation with CASEY BECK, DIRECTOR & PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE OF DIGITAL MEDIA PRACTICES PROGRAM, and STUDENTS

Witting (SLA ’25)

In the summer of 2023, three Digital Media Practices (DMP) coordinate majors — Kalina Kula (SLA ’25), Natalie Maher (SLA ’24), and Alana Witting (SLA ’25) — traveled to Greece for a study abroad program in environmental media productions, where they created a documentary-style marketing video for their community service partner, Ecogenia.

The students were so moved by their experience that after encouragement from Casey Beck, they decided to research and apply for grant funding. They were awarded a Gordon Summer Fellowship from Newcomb-Tulane College, allowing them to return to Greece last summer for a new project — a documentary-style advocacy film, produced in partnership with Mudhouse Residency in Crete, which was released in October. They sat down with Beck to discuss how mentorship and networking opened the doors for their continued film work.

BECK: What about your first program motivated you to create this new project, apply for a grant, and go back to Greece to work with Mudhouse?

WITTING: After learning how to create and how to piece together these stories, I thought it would be an even greater experience to do it on our own.

MAHER: There’s something really valuable in working with nonprofits, and that is what led us to this project with Mudhouse. We felt very connected to Greece, its history and the cultural heritage, and how much pride the people there have for the country, and felt drawn to go back.

KULA: The culture was so visible, and you could actually feel it the whole time. International work was so enticing because the Greek lifestyle was magnetic. And the whole time we were there we’re thinking how impassioned all of the leaders of the program were.

BECK: What have you learned through your experience that you’ve been able to incorporate into your work?

MAHER: There were moments when we were shooting at Mudhouse where we were figuring out if we need to have people sign talent releases. And in my head, I heard you saying, “You really should.” Or how you place a lavalier microphone and set up interview questions.

KULA: There was a lot of adapting on the go and learning the struggles of using equipment and producing in the field, not just the classroom — and that’s how you learn. I also took a class last semester called Decolonizing the Camera, and it taught me how to ask questions about consent in filmmaking because these are real people whose stories you’re telling. That’s something I brought to this project and something that is really hard to learn just in the classroom.

BECK: How has working with DMP professors impacted your academic, and ultimately your career goals? After all, that’s what we are trying to do: prepare you for life after graduation.

Kula (SLA ’24)

WITTING: I think a big thing was working with women who I feel like I can see myself in. It’s a very male-dominated world so it’s really cool to have those examples in our professors and with Mudhouse. Seeing examples of women who are doing the work inspired us to believe we could do it too.

KULA: We were able to take what we learned in class and apply it to an actual project for a real client. That’s not something a lot of students get to do. We were getting real-world experience by creating something that was going to be viewed and helpful to Mudhouse.

MAHER: I’ve always liked writing and conducting written interviews, but the Ecogenia trip made me realize how much I like documentary work and talking to people. There’s so much value in documenting people and places, especially in the increasingly visual society and culture that we live in. It goes far beyond the written word. And even beyond filmmaking, DMP gave me opportunities to meet people and make connections. My experiences with Ecogenia and then Mudhouse taught me a lot about staying in touch: people remember you, and the work you do for them, and those relationships can last.

Maher (SLA ’24), Witting (SLA ’25), Kula (SLA ’25), and Beck in Greece.

A Legacy
of Scholarship
& Generosity

A Conversation with
Alum Herb S. Weil

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

How significant was it for you that Brian is a student of literature?

I was so impressed with his command of language and literature, especially when exploring French and North African — not normally found in English departments, but both are tremendously relevant to global literature.

When we met, we discussed how the area we were exploring was often called comparative literature. In my early professional years, literary criticism of reader response almost always primarily used statistics of race, gender, age, etc., instead of how we are encouraged to find ways that enlarged or completed the work itself. These extended the brilliant study by art historian Ernst Gombrich of “the beholder’s share.” Brian and I agreed early on that the greatest writers have a much deeper and richer sense of character than one would find in sociology or psychology. I liked that as a foundation.

How did the two of you initially conceptualize this professorship?

Our friendship developed over long conversations during the pandemic, but no matter how helpful Zoom is, it doesn’t have the spontaneity or sequence of an in-person conversation. During Brian’s first visit to Victoria, he explained his ideas for a program that so much reflected what I’d believed in and wanted to do, adapted for today’s school under his purview. That was the real start.

Brian gave space for me to bounce ideas, and our Socratic dialogue was the first time I felt I was contributing not just to a department or individual storied academic, but to someone whose program planning made me want to do something more than our initial gift. And I really suggested it not be named after me! The only thing worse than pomposity is people pretending to be humble.

I really felt that Brian’s interest complemented and extended mine.

What is your hope for this gift?

Mostly that it brings in a new idea, one that would take off in a way I never could have predicted. I hope this professor is truly aware of literature, theatre, film, philosophy, history, and encourages their students to think independently. I hope they avoid being any kind of conventional literary disciple or unwavering judge. Finding disparate interpretations within a breadth of major works, getting a classroom involved with the interplay of character with plot, language, and ideas, and with each other, and being able to foster that kind of thinking and energetic, respectful discussion … that sounds pretty great to me.

How would you credit your experiences as a humanist and literature professor in helping develop your philanthropy?

Oh, well, we better take a step back, because, as you know, teachers are not typical donors! I learned via a colleague in the early nineties that these kinds of things (professorships) were being written as gifts, showing promise for both teaching and research.

What Brian proposed was almost a mirror image of my master’s at Stanford, which was a graduate program in the humanities. I’ve always tried to resist generalizing about national literatures or looking too closely at the comparisons, except as a point of departure. I never wanted to just regurgitate what a professor said — I wanted to know the subject matter well enough to create an argument or discussion around it. Or, here, to find an application to something in which the course had not yet applied it.

So, we started there, and I was so impressed with Brian’s program and responses when I was not only out of the country — away from Tulane 40 years — and also a different generation to start with, but also unfamiliar with the administrative elements. I didn’t want to express any doubts. Because, especially in teaching, I emphasize that we aren’t looking for “correct” answers. We’re looking for options and evolution, and the fact that you were creating new ways to raise Tulane’s profile while also making sure the most important other subjects were there, it was almost a mirror image of my double PhD at Stanford. I loved the idea of getting to be a part of that at Tulane.

Do you think people benefit from having a humanistic education to draw from?

One of the brightest, smartest friends I had at Tulane had been so worried about getting into med school that he hadn’t kept up with reading for pleasure. So, whenever I saw him later — as my ophthalmologist — he wouldn’t charge me, but I’d give him collections of poetry and short stories. I think it is critical that we don’t necessarily focus on humanities specialists, which are important in their own right, but also look at why humanities are so important for leaders in other fields.

My older grandchild is 23 and starting a PhD in quantum physics. I spoke with him about this, and he responded roughly when we talked, “People must understand that so much of the scientific method is excellent for studying the universe, but it’s almost never the kind of fact that non-specialists believe. There’s nothing in the study of science that gives the person a sense of spirit and energy that the study of humanities does, in exploring the perspectives of characters.”

Edwards with Herb and Judy Weil during his visit to British Columbia.

Impact as a Liberal Arts Value

Brian T. Edwards, Dean & Professor

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

Dean Brian Edwards with members of the 2024-2025 Student Advisory Board.

From Campus Collaboration to International Impact: The ROLEPLAY Project

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

In February of 2018, I was fortunate to team up with filmmaker and ethnographer Katie Mathews and members of the acclaimed New Orleans-based ensemble theatre company Goat in the Road Productions (GRP), to begin work on our unique interdisciplinary theatre project. Inspired by student responses to the startling results of the campus climate survey on sexual assault, released the previous month, we endeavored to use our expertise to empower young Tulanians to use their authentic stories and voices to change their culture from within.

The collaboration was an experiment full of unknowns: Would students sign up for a year-long theatre devising process, one that had no script and very few concrete details at the start? Could we marry theatre and film, simultaneously helping the students to create Roleplay as an on-stage production while also recording the process for an ensuing ROLEPLAY documentary film? If we succeeded in finding a brave group of students to take on this task, could a play about sexual violence and toxic behavior be truthful, thought-provoking, yet also entertaining?

The project exceeded all expectations. Roleplay’s on-stage production in September 2019, and subsequent remount in January 2023, had a profound impact on Tulane’s campus community. More than six years later, the project is resonating on a national and international level. In March of 2024, ROLEPLAY the film premiered in competition for best documentary at SXSW, to critical acclaim. The film had its regional premiere this October at the New Orleans Film Festival, with additional screenings this fall at the Heartland International Film Fest (Indianapolis, Indiana), the American Film Festival (Wroclaw, Poland), and DocNYC (New York). In March of 2025, the stage play will be remounted at Louisiana State University.

I cannot wait for a larger audience to get to know the brave Tulane students (now proud alumni) who created this project. As critic Ashley Smith noted: “Access to these brilliant young minds and what they’ve accomplished got to me on a cellular level. I remembered to be hopeful for a moment.” The ROLEPLAY project gives me hope, too.

While the problems of sexual violence and toxic behavior continue, I am grateful when I think of the unbreakable bonds of the castmates, of the internal support we’ve received from the School of Liberal Arts, the All-In Committee to Stop Sexual Violence, the Newcomb Institute, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Carol Lavin Bernick, student groups such as Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education (SAPHE) and Sexual Violence Prevention and Response (SVPR), and so many others; of the way community partners like GRP, Gusto Moving Pictures, STAR, the New Orleans Family Justice Center share their wisdom; and how alumni like Nancy Rebold (NC ’88), an executive producer on the film, stepped in at a crucial time to ensure that our film made it to the finish line. The support we’ve received is unlike any project I have ever worked on and demonstrates that when a subject matter galvanizes Tulanians, they have the agency, the creativity, and the support to tackle complicated issues and make a positive impact on the world.

Katie Mathews, Ross Brill, Carl Briggs, Jr., Ashley Bailey, Jo Kramer, Lucy Sartor, Alexandra Elam, James Weiss, Aaron Avidon, Nagelle Leboyd, Grace Graugnard & Hannah Gordon.

“The support we’ve received is unlike any project I have ever worked on and demonstrates that when a subject matter galvanizes Tulanians, they have the agency, the creativity, and the support to tackle complicated issues and make a positive impact on the world.”
— Mercein

Executive Producer Abby Epstein, Mercein, Mathews, Nancy Rebold (NC ’88).
Top Photo: Official Film Poster. Red Carpet Photos: Shunya Carroll.