Conversations after the storm

Loyola University:

“After the Storm: Four Nights of Conversation on Post-Katrina New Orleans”

(New Orleans)— The Loyola University New Orleans College of Arts & Sciences Faculty Forum and the Loyola First-Year Experience will host a series of four panel discussions to encourage dialogue on the topics of New Orleans and its culture, media, environment, and working poor, in relation to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. With a fantastic line-up of renowned Crescent City artists, writers, professors, reporters, and many others, the series will kick off in late January and continue into February. All panels will be held at 7 p.m. in Nunemaker Auditorium, located in Monroe Hall on Loyola’s main campus, 6363 St. Charles Ave.


Thursday, January 19, 2006: “New Orleans Culture: How Can It Be Saved?”

* John Biguenet (O. Henry Award winning author of Oyster and the Robert Hunter Distinguished Professor of English, Loyola University New Orleans)
* Eddie Bo (New Orleans Piano and R&B Legend)
* Michael Crutcher (University of Kentucky professor of cultural geography and expert on New Orleans African-American marching organizations)
* Lolis Eric Elie (Times-Picayune columnist and author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country)
* Kenneth Holditch (French Quarter historian & co-author of Galatoire’s: Biography of a Bistro)
* Alecia Long (author of The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans)
* Susan Spicer (chef & restaurateur)
* Mark Fernandez (associate professor, Department of History, Loyola University New Orleans)


Thursday, February 2, 2006: “The Media and Katrina: What Went Right?, What Went Wrong?”

* Mary Blue (associate professor, Department of Communications, Loyola University New Orleans)
* Larry Lorenz (A. Louis Read Distinguished Professor in Communications, Loyola University New Orleans)
* Adam Nossiter (reporter, New York Times)
* Garland Robinette (host, The Garland Robinette Show on WWL 870 AM)
* Norman Robinson (anchor, WDSU-TV)
* Terri Troncale (editorial page editor, Times-Picayune)
* Dennis Woltering (anchor, WWL-TV)
* Nancy Dupont (associate professor, Department of Communications, Loyola University New Orleans)


Thursday, February 9, 2006: “New Orleans & Its Environment Before and After Katrina”

* John Barry (author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America)
* Richard Campanella (Tulane-Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research and author of Time and Place in New Orleans)
* Craig Colten (Carl O. Sauer Professor of Geography & Anthropology at Louisiana State University and author of An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature)
* Carlton Dufrechou (Executive Director, Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation)
* Mark Schleifstein (Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental reporter, Times-Picayune)
* Robert Thomas (Loyola Chair in Environmental Communications)
* Maura Woods (Senior Louisiana Representative, Sierra Club)
* Craig Hood (professor of biological sciences, Loyola University New Orleans)


Thursday, February 16, 2006: “The Working Poor of New Orleans After The Storm”

* Alan Berube (Metropolitan Policy Fellow, The Brookings Institution)
* Jarvis DeBerry (columnist, Times-Picayune)
* Angel Parham (Assistant Professor of Sociology, Loyola University)
* Mary Pattillo (Arthur Anderson Research Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Northwestern University and author of Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among The Black Middle Class)
* Mark Robert Rank (Herbert Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at Washington University and author of One Nation Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All)
* Wade Rathke (Founder and Chief Labor Organizer of ACORN)
* William Quigley (director of Loyola’s Gillis Long Poverty Law Center and author of Ending Poverty as We Know It: Guaranteeing the Right to a Job at a Living Wage)
* Lydia Voigt (Reverend Joseph H. Fichter Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Loyola University)


For additional information, please contact Loyola Associate Professor of History Michael Ross, Ph.D., at 504-865-3538 or email maross1@loyno.edu.