Irish New Orleans

Using the interactive software StoryMaps in her fall course, history professor Laura Kelley teaches her students important research skills while broadening the archive of Irish New Orleans' culture.

At the intersection of Canal Street and City Park Avenue, St. Patrick’s Cemeteries offer an important history of New Orleans’ culture often left out of the city’s greater narrative. This semester, Laura Kelley, an adjunct professor in the Department of History, and her service-learning students set out to enrich the history of Irish New Orleans through in-depth investigations of the St. Patrick’s Cemeteries No. 1 and 2 using new, interactive technology.

Amid the uncertainties in teaching and learning this year due to Covid-19, Kelley began exploring alternative ways to engage students in her courses, which led her to the ArcGIS mapping software StoryMaps. While GIS programming can be complicated and require a great deal of training, StoryMaps is user-friendly and allows individuals to upload information such as text and photographs to build comprehensive maps.

Kelley’s students began their research projects in her Irish New Orleans course this fall by visiting the St. Patrick’s cemeteries and proposing research topics of personal interest based on findings at the cemeteries, which ranged from architecture to WWII history and epidemics. As Kelley explains, “Cemeteries are popular tourist destinations in New Orleans, but we still tend to think of them as static spaces. These projects show just the opposite—they show us that these sites are engaging spaces, and spaces to really examine the heritage of the city.”

To develop rich historical texts, Kelley’s students used the cemeteries as their primary research source, accompanied by archival research and interviews with experts. Then they uploaded their text and images to StoryMaps. Each student’s research project increases the breadth of knowledge of Irish culture in New Orleans, a vital immigrant group to consider when learning about the diversity and history of the South, Kelley explains. “In learning about Irish immigrants, you can see similar prejudices that come into play when discussing our history and current moment. This research allows for more dynamic conversations to occur about the U.S., about the role that immigrants have played in the shaping of our country, and in New Orleans in particular.”

Through the Philanthropy and Social Change course, Tulane students learn the importance of giving back. As part of the School of Liberal Arts Management Minor (SLAMM), Philanthropy and Social Change educates students on the process of philanthropy through the lens of social justice. Lead by Leslie Scott, an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, this semester focused on the significant impact that the performing arts has in communities. Students engaged in both in-class work and a service-learning component that fostered student immersion in 27 different New Orleans community-based arts programs. After submitting requests for proposals to these organizations, the class received 22 applications for a $10,000 grant made possible by the Learning by Giving Foundation.

The culmination of the course was a virtual ceremony where the grant was awarded to the local not-for-profit performing arts studio Silhouette Dance Ensemble. Dedicated to extracurricular programing for those most in need, the organization focuses on enrichment for individuals, families, and the greater New Orleans community. Kai Knight, the founder and executive director of Silhouette Dance Ensemble attended the event thinking she would be offering a lecture to students but was instead pleasantly surprised with the $10,000 grant.

Learn more about this unique course and watch the fall 2021 award ceremony here:

View past stories about Philanthropy and Social Change:
Philanthropy is more than ‘throwing money at a problem’ - November 3, 2017
Learning to Give - January 17, 2017
Students to get $50,000 lesson in philanthropy - February 24, 2015

In 1993, alumnus Ronald L. Wright (A&S ’94) was crowned Tulane University’s homecoming king. “The idea of being homecoming king is that you’re hoping you have engendered in your peers faith for them to say ‘this is someone we trust and want to be representative of our school,’” explains Wright. “I try to apply that same mentality to my work, my positions on nonprofit boards, and my volunteer work today.”

Wright is an OB/GYN based in Louisville, Ky. He has served on the board of directors at the University of Louisville and Clark Memorial Hospital and has volunteered for numerous organizations, schools, and centers. Wright knew he wanted to be a doctor from a young age, and he thought a path to medical school necessitated studying biology as an undergraduate. However, at a pre-med society meeting his sophomore year at Tulane, a guest speaker encouraged the students to consider a variety of majors as undergrads. Wright, having studied the language since seventh grade, quickly switched his major to French. Balancing his love for French and his desire to work in medicine, Wright also participated in Tulane EMS (TEMS) as a junior and senior.

“One of the great things about being a French major is that it is a fairly small cohort of classmates, so you really get to know each other,” said Wright. “I’m still in contact with several of those people even now.” Wright received the Louis Bush Medal from the Department of French and Italian as an undergraduate at Tulane, and although he doesn’t get to use his in-depth knowledge of French every day, it has been helpful when attending to a few of his patients and also allowed him to assist a man in cardiac arrest on an overseas flight. In addition, speaking French became essential for quickly learning Spanish during his residency at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas.

Reflecting on his years of practicing medicine and speaking French, Wright appreciates how these disciplines have allowed him to see and experience the world from multiple perspectives. “Often times, patients that speak the same language you speak are stressed, anxious, and have fears—they have to put a lot of trust in their physician. And it’s an even more vulnerable place for someone to be when they don’t know a language fluently. Learning French has benefitted me in considering different points of view, in being empathetic, and in understanding my patients’ and others’ perspectives more fully.”

"The homecoming court of 1993 was presented during halftime of the football game." Jambalaya yearbook 1994. Alumnus Ronald Wright (A&S ’94) is pictured fifth from the left. Photo credit: Jeremy Ehrhardt

Isolated in Uptown New Orleans this summer, I found injunctions to distance, stay at home, and flatten curves dizzying but oddly familiar. A cultural anthropologist of India, I have been exposed to similar ideas in the rural tuberculosis-affected community I research. Tuberculosis, like Covid-19, is an airborne pulmonary disease. It infects without prejudice but usually sickens and kills the marginalized. Also like Covid-19, tuberculosis radically reshapes people’s lives.

Deva, a middle-aged farmer and woodcutter from southeastern Rajasthan, is an example. I visited him frequently during his two-year drug resistant tuberculosis treatment. Because the treatment left him nauseous and drowsy, we often sat together on a cot in front of his home atop a foothill of the Aravalli mountains. Surveying the forest below, Deva recounted: “You know, I’m on government duty sitting here staring at the forest.”

In India, “on government duty” is ubiquitous and often painted on bureaucrat’s cars and plastered to trucks going about some public task. Still, a farmer understanding stopping work and other duties to get well as a public project or ‘government duty’ was striking and useful. Just as Deva’s doctors told him, we were given directions to ‘stay at home’ and isolate ourselves and families as our public duty in response to Covid-19. However, from my backyard and during a week-long writing retreat at A Studio in the Woods, I realized that our collective unease associated with this public duty reveals the importance of social relationships.

Anthropologists have long suggested that we study families to understand how people make sense of their lives and identities. They call these relationships kinship and imagine them as trees, family trees. This focus on the trees, however, misses what was staring Deva and I in the face: a forest of other loose but meaningful human connections like friends, co-workers, a crush, or a child’s caregiver that were no longer possible in moments of staying-at-home. As I struggled to write my new book (of which Deva’s story is part) at A Studio in the Woods, I looked past my laptop and out one of the cozy Writer’s Cabin windows. There, while gazing at another forest—its elderberries in bloom and trumpet vines stretched between an oak and a young cottonwood—it became clear that we anthropologists would do well to attend to the bushy, spreading, and flexible forms of relationships that grow between, across, and on top of family trees. They too are crucial relationships that make life complex, vibrant, and contagious. Similarly, they are connections through which care can move. With Deva, Covid-19, and A Studio in the Woods’ help, I began to imagine new ways to see and write about these uncultivated and entangled ways of being together that make life meaningful and abundant.

For the 2020-2021 academic year, the School of Liberal Arts is working collaboratively with A Studio in the Woods to offer four liberal arts faculty fellowships for one-week residencies at the Studio. These competitive faculty residencies are aimed at providing creative respite during a period when it is harder than ever to find spaces outside the home to do concentrated work. More information is available on the Studio in the Woods Faculty Fellowship page.

After a six-hour shift trying to catch a urine sample from an arboreal monkey (not an easy task) in the summer of 2019, I sat outside the Sector Santa Rosa field station enjoying the nice weather. Sector Santa Rosa is a large national park in northwest Costa Rica comprised of over 100 km² of tropical dry forest and is home to one of the longest running primate research projects. As I waited for fellow researchers that afternoon, two of my team members, Sophie Lieber (SLA ’21) and Nuria Ferrero Marín, ran up with concerned looks. They showed me a video we would later publish and described how a snake attacked one of our study monkeys and the group rescued it! I couldn’t believe what they saw, and I praised Sophie for keeping the camera rolling despite her distress.

When our team returned to the U.S., we discussed publishing an article about this experience. I was thrilled at the prospect, especially because it would yield my very first publication. Our first task was to identify the individuals involved in the rescue, meticulously picking through the video frame by frame. Then, I sorted through several databases trying to find every published article of a constricting snake predation attempt on a primate, of which there are very few. In fact, I only found 11 published accounts. Discovering just how rare this observation was furthered my excitement. Though now there are only 12 accounts, victims of snake attack only survived when multiple group members physically attacked the snake (as opposed to threatening vocalizations). Thus, this publication was more than just an interesting observation—it was evidence of the role of cooperation in primate survival.

Our article was published in Nature’s Scientific Reports on October 8, 2020 by Professor Katharine Jack (Department of Anthropology), myself, and Tulane undergraduates and graduates Michaela Brown (SLA ’21), Nelle Kulick (SLA/SSE ’20), Sophie Lieber (SLA ’21), and Costa Rican staff Saul Cheves Hernandez and Nuria Ferrero Marín. My first publication is an important step in furthering my academic career, and I am fortunate that it was such an exciting publication. This project was a true collaboration between primatologists at all levels: full time project staff, undergraduates, a graduate student, and a professor. I have enjoyed a fantastic graduate experience, thanks in large part to my mentor, Professor Jack, who has helped me shape and develop my own research projects. With her assistance, I was able to secure a grant from The Leakey Foundation and collect behavioral data on the Santa Rosa capuchin monkeys from January to May of 2020, which has formed the basis of my doctoral dissertation. I am excited to explore and publish my results, and I can only hope my future endeavors are even half as exciting, enjoyable, and collaborative as this project was.

Margaret Buehler collecting data in Sector Santa Rosa, Costa Rica in 2020.

An alpha male and a subadult male white-faced capuchin cooperatively threaten a Boa constrictor in Sector Santa Rosa, Costa Rica. Photo by Jeffrey A. Rinderknecht, courtesy of Valerie Schoof.

Thankful Reflections

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Dear Liberal Arts Community,

As the weather cools down here in New Orleans and the holidays approach, the winding down of the semester is on the horizon. It has been in so many ways an amazing fall, one that allowed us to come together again and that reminded us how much we rely on one another for the vitality of a college campus.

I hope you will have time this week to gather with family and friends, to relax, to celebrate, and to pause and reflect on all we have been through together. And as we move toward that break, I wanted to share some favorite moments from the past few weeks.

We kicked off Homecoming with a new Friday event, “Play Ball with Dean Edwards,” where I had the opportunity to answer questions from parents and alumni and speak about the value of a liberal arts education—while also playing several rounds of cornhole and throwing a football across the JL quad. For our students: we’ll be continuing “Catch Up with the Dean” events throughout the year, featuring food and yard games, so keep an eye out for the next date!

On game day Saturday, we tailgated and caught up with familiar faces like Frederick Bell (SLA ’20), our newly elected representative on the Tulane Alumni Association Board of Directors. Wave Weekend was a win.

On the first Friday of November, nine members of the School of Liberal Arts were recognized at Tulane’s 2022 Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Awards. Having so many of our own honored in this university wide celebration is a point of pride, and our colleagues won some of the biggest prizes of the night.

Among them was Classical Studies Professor Dennis Kehoe, who received the prestigious Hall of Fame award for his stellar achievements over the decades and for his substantial contributions to advancing knowledge at Tulane. I encourage you to watch his Hall of Fame video.

And just last week, we held our 4th annual Bobby Yan Lectureship in Media and Social Change, welcoming Peruvian American journalist, novelist and radio producer Daniel Alarcón. A captivated crowd of nearly 200 packed the Freeman Auditorium to hear him present stories from his famous podcast Radio Ambulante—a fitting kick off to International Education Week. Alarcón's work explores how language, culture and society transcend geopolitical borders and reinforces our focus on a global liberal arts. The following day, Alarcón also visited Professor Billy Saas’ Podcasting & Social Justice class to record an interview with students and provide his insights on the medium.

While these are highlights, it is the entire semester for which I’m thankful. The appreciation goes to our amazing staff, our fabulous faculty, and all the people at Tulane who work to make ours such a special community. With that, I thank you for your support and wish everyone a relaxing and happy holiday.

For current students (and parents), if you’re talking academic plans at the dinner table this week, don’t forget to save room for summer courses—whether in Creative Industries or SLAM, Environmental Studies or U.S Public Policy. These offerings allow you to extend your time in this incredible city after the regular school year ends, not to mention get into some incredible classes and boost your credits ahead of the fall!

Warm best to all,

Brian Edwards, Dean and Professor, School of Liberal Arts

Tulane School of Liberal Arts 

102 Newcomb Hall • New Orleans, LA 70118
liberalarts.tulane.edu 

Relive the fun of Wave Weekend 2024 with our highlight reel and slideshow, featuring all of the revelry from our annual Catch Up with the Dean event, game day tailgate, and more!
 

 

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Dr. Demetrius Williams (African American Religious History & Intro to the New Testament) was the professor that had the greatest impact on my career.  He was my first professor of color whom I could easily relate to.  He is a very well-educated minister and gifted scholar who helped shape my career path as a minister, social worker, community activist, and entrepreneur.

In discussing favorite professors, among the best was Robert Strong, Political Science department.  His writing assignments contributed to skills I use every day in my career, but his real impact on my life was cultivating my interest in twentieth century American foreign policy – which has absolutely nothing to do with my career – but remains a part of my life through the books I read to this day.  And the books he assigned still sit on my shelves, dog eared, highlighted, annotated, and occasionally reread.

I took a creative writing course with Professor Eric Trethewey that I think served me well, for a few reasons.  First, as a practical matter, writing is essential to my litigation practice, and that course was probably my first foray into really focusing on the importance of good writing and the skillset necessary to be a good writer.  Relatedly, it opened me up to thinking in a more critical way, while also focusing for the first time on reading poetry and some of the great books, something I had not done really begun to do until that point—and that I’m still working on!

The moment I stepped onto Tulane's campus, I knew it was the place for me.  My most memorable class at Tulane was 'The History of Louisiana'. No school can provide the opportunity to learn about something like the diverse blend of cultures that led to traditions, such as Mardi Gras, and then to experience it as well.

As a proud graduate of Tulane University, staying involved with the alumni community allows me to give back to the institution that helped shape my personal and professional journey. Serving on the National Alumni Board gives me the opportunity to connect with fellow alumni, contribute to the growth and development of the university, and support future generations of Tulanians. Tulane’s commitment to innovation, community, and academic excellence continues to inspire me, and I am honored to play a role in advancing its legacy.

Ana María Ochoa, a professor in the Newcomb Department of Music, the Department of Communication and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, was appointed as the 2025 Ernest Bloch Professor of Music in residency at UC Berkeley. The Ernest Bloch Professorship of Music was established at the University of California in 1962 in order to bring distinguished figures in music to the Berkeley campus. In this role, Ochoa will host a lecture series titled “Sonic Extractivisms: Historiographies of Music and Sound in Times of Climate Change.” The lectures will explore an anthropogenic history of sound during the first half of the twentieth century (up to the 1960s), a period of intense imperial expansion of the United States in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars has named Corey Miles as a Career Enhancement Fellow for the 2024–25 academic year. The Career Enhancement Fellowship, funded by the Mellon Foundation and administered by Citizens & Scholars, seeks to increase the presence of outstanding junior faculty committed to campus diversity and innovative research in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Miles, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Africana Studies Program, focuses his research on the nexus of Black performativity and carcerality. He investigates how surveillance and policing are technologies that fuel the structure of the U.S. south, and the ways Black aesthetics has challenged the epistemological assumptions of this structure. His forthcoming Vibe: The Sound and Feeling of Black Life in the American South (University Press of Mississippi) maps the ways the U.S. South itself is a site of carcerality, and how trap music is used as a relational space to contest and make sense of emotional and spatial violence. Dr. Miles explores how racialized emotions, often built into the gritty cadence of trap music, are important analytical sites for understanding the emotional, spatial, and temporal violence of anti-Black structures. In addition to his work on Black performativity, he is interested in Black temporality. His current project builds on the idiom that suggests ‘doing time’ is a carceral experience and asks, “In what ways do Black people resist doing time and/or time itself?”

Adrian Anagnost and Leslie Geddes, both associate professors of Art, received a National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture award for their program “Bvlbancha Rising: Louisiana Landmarks and Climate Change Challenges.” The program will host two workshops in June 2025 where higher education and humanities practitioners will explore coastal Louisiana cultural landmarks imperiled by human action, i.e., sea-level rise due to climate change, threats to biodiversity, and impacts of extractive industries. They will pay particular attention to sites and place-based practices important to Indigenous, Black, and Asian American histories. Through site visits, experiential learning, discussions, and guest lectures by artists, writers, scholars, filmmakers, and community activists, participants will explore ways the humanities play an important role in understanding environmental change and creating expressive responses to ecological pressures.

Two School of Liberal Arts professors were awarded a Tulane Research Award at this year’s Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Awards. 

Karissa Haugeberg, associate professor and Eva-Lou Joffrion Edwards Newcomb Professorship in History, received the Spirit Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement during the prior calendar year of a scholar/investigator whose work embodies Tulane's motto: Non sibi, sed suis (Not for oneself, but for one's own) while enhancing the research mission through education, creative expression, mentorship, and collaborative effort to advance knowledge.

Jesmyn Ward, professor of English and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, received the Publication Award for her book Let Us Descend. This award is designed to honor scholars and investigators at Tulane University for their exceptional contributions to academic literature by acknowledging the best journal article published in the preceding calendar year and the best book published within 24 months of the award selection date, which occurs annually in August. These awards recognize the significant contributions to the scholarly record at the intersection of impact, merit, and relevance.