November 2009 e-Newsletter
left_round LEH seeks nominations for 2010 humanities awards

The LEH is now accepting nominations for the 2010 annual awards for outstanding achievement in and contributions to the humanities. Winners will be honored at a special ceremony next spring.

Individuals, institutions or organizations may submit nominations. Individuals, however, may not nominate themselves. Letters of nomination should not exceed two pages and should detail specific accomplishments that qualify the nominee for the award. A vita and other letters of support should accompany the letter of nomination. Send nominations to: Chair, Humanities Awards Committee, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 938 Lafayette St., Suite 300, New Orleans, LA  70113.

Nominations must be received in the LEH office no later than 5 p.m. Nov. 9, 2009. Award categories include:
  • Louisiana Humanist of the Year
  • Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Humanities
  • Chair's Award for Institutional Support
  • Humanities Documentary Film of the Year Award
  • Individual Achievement in the Humanities Award
  • Michael P. Smith Award for Documentary Photography
  • Humanities Book of the Year Award
  • Humanities Teacher of the Year Awards
The "humanities," as defined by Congress, include the study of literature, history, philosophy, modern and classical languages, linguistics, archaeology, jurisprudence, art history and criticism, ethics, comparative religion, and those disciplines of the social sciences employing historical or philosophical approaches such as cultural anthropology or social theory. For additional information about the annual humanities awards, contact LEH President Michael Sartisky at sartisky@leh.org or visit the LEH website at www.leh.org.

For more info, click here.
left_round LEH receives Andy Warhol grant

The LEH, in partnership with Video Veracity and CecilFilm Productions, recently received a $10,000 grant from the New York-based Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Funds will support completion of a new feature documentary from New Orleans-based filmmaker Katherine Cecil entitled "Race: The 2006 New Orleans Mayoral Election." The film probes the complex post-Katrina climate in the city, as well as in far-flung evacuee communities, and places that extraordinary race within the larger historical context of the New Orleans mayoralty and the city's often contentious electoral politics. "Race" is expected to be completed next year.
left_round LEH conducts American history workshops for teachers

On Oct. 7 and 9, the LEH conducted Teaching American History workshops for public school teachers in northeast and southwest Louisiana. Both workshops were funded by two separate U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History, or TAH, grants.

Northeast Louisiana - The Oct. 7 workshop, underwritten by a new five-year, $1.6 million TAH grant to five school districts in northeast Louisiana, explored the American Revolution and it origins. Attending the workshop were 48 public elementary and middle school teachers from Ouachita, Morehouse, Richland, East Carroll parishes and Monroe City schools. Dr. John Fea, a professor of history at Messiah College, Grantham, Pa., gave an excellent presentation on the root causes of the Revolution and changing attitudes of colonists towards independence. John McNamara, a master teacher consultant with the Gilder Lehrman History Institute in New York conducted a session on how teachers can help their students better understand the American Revolution and that era through the use of original documents from that period.

Southwest Louisiana - The Oct. 9 workshop, funded by a $1 million, three-year TAH grant to Calcasieu Public Schools, explored the role of the federal government in the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession of 2009. Conducting the workshop, which was attended by 37 Calcasieu public middle and high school teachers, was Dr. Gary Gerstle, the James G. Stahlman Professor of American History and Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt University.
left_round LEH continues New Orleans mayors forum

On Nov. 4, the LEH's "New Orleans Mayors" series of panel discussions continues at the Louisiana Humanities Center.  The conversation will focus on the administration of Moon Landrieu, mayor from 1970-1978, with topics of discussion including the desegregation of City Hall, the development of the downtown business district, historic restoration and tourism. New Orleans Magazine editor Errol Laborde will moderate a panel of former journalists and city hall insiders. Doors open at 7 p.m. at the LHC, 938 Lafayette St. All sessions are free and open to the public. The series continues on Nov.18 with a panel discussion on the administration of Dutch Morial.  View flyer. For more information, contact Brian Boyles at 504-620-2632 or boyles@leh.org.
left_round LEH offers grants for nonfiction writers & photographers

Nonfiction writers, historians and documentary photographers, exploring Louisiana-related cultural topics, may be eligible to receive grants up to $4,000 through the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' annual Louisiana Publishing Initiative.

The LEH announces the availability of grants to authors writing on Louisiana humanities nonfiction topics, such as literature, history, languages, music, cultural anthropology, folk life or other humanities disciplines. Grants of $4,000 also are available for documentary photographers to document various aspects of Louisiana's diverse culture. All awards must culminate in a completed book-length manuscript. Novels and poetry are not eligible. The application deadline is Feb. 15, 2010.

Past recipients include books such as Philip Gould's Louisiana's Capitol, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's Africans in Colonial Louisiana, Bliss Broyard's One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life: A Story of Race and Family Secrets, Elizabeth Mullener's Eyewitness: Tales of New Orleanians in World War II, and Jay Edwards's Plantations by the River.

For additional information, go to www.leh.org or contact LEH Deputy Director John R. Kemp at the LEH, 504-620-2481, (toll free) 1-800-909-7990 ext. 116, or at kemp@leh.org.
left_round PRIME TIME presents at International Book Fair in Puerto Rico

The 12th International Book Fair of Puerto Rico (FIL-PR), one of the largest book fairs in the Caribbean, was held Oct. 21-25, 2009 at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan. Each year, the book fair contributes to the support of books and reading. It is also an opportunity for national and international publishers to present their latest publications. Organized around the traditional Café de los Poetas (Coffee of the Poets), the heart of the FIL-PR, approximately 350 publishers from Spain, Argentina, México, Colombia, United States, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Canada and Guatemala attended the fair.

This year's slogan was "Reading Shortens Distances."  The PRIME TIME staff couldn't agree more; which is why Miranda Restovic, PRIME TIME Co-Director, accepted the invitation from Cyril Anis, Executive Director of Alliance Française in Puerto Rico (which has a large presence on the island territory) to lead a session on PRIME TIME's innovative bilingual programming for Francophone and Spanish-speaking families.  The presentation was generously sponsored by the Office for Educational Affairs at the French embassy in the U.S. Restovic presented a session titled PRIME TIME FAMILY READING TIME: Innovative Approach to Strengthening Families and Communities to an international audience of approximately 30 education and literacy professionals.  

The LEH and PRIME TIME appreciate the hospitality of the Alliance Française in Puerto Rico and the generosity of the French embassy.  

*Conference details excerpted from www.repeatingislands.com, a website offering news and commentary on Caribbean culture, literature and the arts.
left_round PRIME TIME profiled at national humanities conference

The 2009 Federation of State Humanities Councils Conference will be held in Omaha, Nebraska Nov. 6-8, 2009.  The National Conference will examine how state humanities councils traditionally have fostered greater public awareness, appreciation and understanding of the humanities and how councils can continue to shape public discourse on the nation's pressing problems. The conference will showcase best practices and challenge us to re-envision how the humanities can inspire a nation, in the face of cynicism and apathy, to explore the common landscapes of the heart, sow the seeds of hope, and cultivate dreams of cultural enrichment, civic engagement, and sustainable sources of intellectual renewal.

LEH Executive Director Dr. Michael Sartisky will moderate a panel session titled:  "When Life Gives You Lemons...: Creating and Sustaining a Humanities-Based Literacy Landscape during Difficult Times." The purpose of this session is to "help humanities councils devise alternative means of funding, particularly due to the recent budget cuts with which they have had to contend recently." Panelists will provide brief descriptions of the humanities-based literacy programs with which they have been involved and the funding means through which these have been sustained. Along with long-time PRIME TIME partners Patricia Putman, Associate Director at the Florida Humanities Council, and Kathleen Pool, Associate Director at the Kentucky Humanities Council, Dr. Sartisky will share information on the fiscal creativity and ingenuity that has helped sustain PRIME TIME programming.  

*Conference details excerpted from www.statehumanities.org; the official website of the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
left_round PRIME TIME: Important upcoming dates

  Spring 2010 Brochure Flier Forms
Congratulations to all spring 2010 PRIME TIME grant recipients!  Please remember to submit the Brochure-Flier Information Forms (BFI) before the Nov. 16 deadline. The purpose of this form is to collect site-specific information for customized promotional materials and training workshop invitations.  Please note that spring 2010 BFIs should be submitted electronically. Please contact Shantrell Adams with questions or concerns about this process. Once BFIs are received, registration forms for training workshop participants will follow.

January 2010 Training Workshop Dates
Mark your calendars!  Dates have been set for the next PRIME TIME training opportunity in Louisiana.  The PRIME TIME Training Workshop will be held Jan.16-17, 2010, at the Louisiana Humanities Center at Turners' Hall, 938 Lafayette St., New Orleans. For additional details on the event, contact Shantrell Adams.
left_round RELIC: Readings in Literature & Culture
 
 RELIC's new adult reading program "Where Is North Louisiana?" has revealed interesting, recurring trends in locations in the northeast where this program has occurred.  There seems to be something important in the minds of residents in north Louisiana about the local and traditional scene and folk art expressions in various media.  Previously, in Vidalia, and continuing through the concluding session in Bastrop, numerous displays of folk art, some locally recorded music, and stories passed through generations were offered for examination and exchange by audience members.  One of the scholars in Bastrop noted "the [RELIC] programs are living experiences that generate interactions among the participants rather than canned presentations that invite them to be passive only. This program had a much more interactive feel than the average RELIC series."  

Participants in Bastrop point to something that RELIC is teasing out of the clay hills of the north: artists and artisans rendering the natural world and the traditions of generations into forms of expression that cannot be mistaken for that of Acadiana or the cultural region of New Orleans.  And teasing it out is not an exaggeration.  One Bastrop resident offered, "We are an area that is still 'creating our story.'" While another admitted: ""It [RELIC] made me more aware of our cultural heritage here in North Louisiana."  

In November, the RELIC program in Farmerville will discuss the pervasive legacy of Caddo Indians and others in "The Native American World." Participants in Ringgold's RELIC program will explore their connections to the state in "Louisiana History," and veterans of World War II will share and listen to others in Houma's "I'll Be Seeing You... America and World War II."
left_round Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine


The Winter 2009/10 edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas will debut in early December, in advance of the holiday season, so there is still time to purchase gift subscriptions for family, friends and business associates.

The next issue will feature the following topics:

  • Paintings by William Woodward culled from the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC). Woodward (1859-1939) was a Louisiana impressionist painter best known for his scenes of the French Quarter at the turn of the 20th century.
  • The recently discovered photographs of John T. Mendes, an amateur photographer who documented New Orleans in the 1910s and 20s. An LEH-funded book by UNO Press and an exhibit at the HNOC of Mendes's images will premiere in early December.
  • Biographies of three generations of Native-American women from Louisiana's Koasati tribe, excerpted from the book Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times.
  • The origins of New Orleans' nicknames, from "Crescent City" and "Queen City of the South" to "Big Easy" and the "City That Care Forgot."
  • A history of riots that broke out in New Orleans' Desire Housing Project in the early 1970s, excerpted from the LEH-funded book Showdown in Desire by Arissa Orend.
  • An examination of the cultures that defined New Orleans' character from Ned Sublette's LEH Book of the Year, The World That Made New Orleans.
left_round LEH-supported programs


Baton Rouge: On display through Dec. 13, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, 100 River Road South, presents Starry Messenger: Galileo's Vision in 21st Century Art, an exhibition of paintings, digital art, graphics, and sculpture in glass and bronze. Offered in conjunction with interpretive text, an exhibition catalogue and humanities-based public programs that explore the historical, scientific and cultural impact of Galileo, the exhibition observes the International Year of Astronomy, scheduled to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope. To complement the exhibition, the museum presents Award-winning novelist Dava Sobel about her best-selling book Galileo's Daughter, which revisits the life of the great Italian scientist through the eyes of his eldest daughter, a cloistered nun. For more information, contact 225-344-5272.

Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, Lafayette and New Iberia: Celebrating its 10th season, Louisiana Crossroads is an innovative and acclaimed informance and broadcast series showcasing the finest in Louisiana roots music and folkways. Events unite accomplished performers with humanities scholars to ensure interactive, educational and entertaining experiences for audiences of all ages. The seven-month, 20-event series continues through March 2010, and takes place at venues in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, New Iberia and New Orleans. For more information, contact 337-233-7060. Roddie Romero & The Hub-City All Stars with special guest Joel Guzman will perform at the follow places in November:
  • Nov. 17, 7 p.m., Manship Theatre, Baton Rouge.
  • Nov. 18, 7 p.m., Central School Theater, Lake Charles. This event will be broadcast live via KRVS 88.7 FM and www.krvs.org.
  • Nov. 19, 7 p.m., Sliman Theater, New Iberia.
  • Nov. 20, 8 p.m., Vermilionville Performance Center, Lafayette.
Kenner: The Cannes Brûlées Native American Museum, Rivertown Exhibition Hall at 415 Williams Boulevard, is an indoor museum exhibiting a collection of traditional and contemporary artworks created by contemporary American Indian artisans from Louisiana and the Southeast. Items displayed include basketry, jewelry, tools, weapons, musical instruments, clay pottery, wood carvings, children's toys, model dwellings, paintings, moccasins, Dreamcatchers, a dugout cypress pirogue and more. On Nov. 15, the museum hosts the Louisiana Native American Festival at the Rivertown Exhibition Hall, in Kenner, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, contact 504-468-7231.

Metairie: The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival presents the second in a series of library discussions during its 8th annual Coffee and Conversations at the Jefferson Parish Public Library. You Have to Kill Your Darlings to Save Your Art, a public discussion featuring Amanda Boyden, author of the acclaimed Pretty Little Dirty (2006) and of Babylon Rolling (2008) will talk about the difficulties of learning when to relent and "kill your darlings" and when to hold on tight. The event is scheduled for 7-9 p.m. Nov. 10 at the Jefferson Parish - East Bank Regional Library, 4747 West Napoleon Ave. For more information, contact 504-581-1144.

Opelousas: Opelousas Main Street will present Talking History...An Historical Reenactment Tour, which will take place around the historical St. Landry Parish Courthouse Square.  Like the French Friday event, Talking History is free and open to the public.  Tour times are 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30 p.m. Nov. 7. Both locals and visitors are encouraged to come out and take a stroll around the Courthouse Square where tour guides dressed in period-style costumes lead them to actors who will portray individuals of historical significance in St. Landry Parish.  Some of those portrayed include Father James Hyland, the first priest of Holy Ghost Catholic Church; Manon Balwin, a free woman of color; Dr. Vincent Boagni, a noted Opelousas physician; Clifton and Cleveland Chenier, Zydeco pioneers; and Jim Bowie, legendary adventurer and inventor of the Bowie Knife. For more information, contact 337-948-5227.

Plaquemine: The Iberville Museum, 57735 Main St., presents the latest installment of its People of Iberville exhibition and public program series entitled The Germans of Iberville, an exhibition showcasing the cultural, political and economic contributions of German-born settlers in the region. On Nov. 7, Dr. Ellen Merrill, author of Germans of Louisiana, will present a scholarly lecture highlighting the settlement of the Germans in Louisiana. For more information, contact 225-687-7197.

Shreveport: The Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College, 2911 Centenary Blvd., presents Magnificent, Marvelous Martele: American Art Nouveau Silver from the Collection of Jolie and Robert Shelton, an exhibition featuring Martele silver pieces from the world's most comprehensive collection. The Martele collection will be on display through Nov. 8. On display in the Focus Gallery through Dec. 24 is the temporary exhibition entitled Louisiana Artists from the Arthur Roger Gallery. Beginning Nov. 22 through Jan. 31, 2010 is the exhibit titled For the Love of Art: Selections from the Collection of John Webster Keefe. For more information, contact 318-869-5040.
left_round LEH funds art retrospective catalogue


New Orleans artist Jean Seidenberg recently completed a catalogue of paintings, drawings and sculpture from a lifetime of work.  The handsome full-color catalogue features a forward by LEH Executive Director Michael Sartisky as well as an interpretive essay by Chris Waddington.  Seidenberg, born in Manhattan, moved to New Orleans in 1951 where he has been making art ever since. Though he has applied his craft to photography, portraits, sculpture and stagecraft, the catalogue focuses on his non-commissioned studio work. The catalogue resulted from a January 2008 retrospective survey of his work at the Ogden Museum. It was funded by a grant from the LEH and private donors.
left_round NEH to present books and videos to libraries

The National Endowment for the Humanities, in cooperation with the American Library Association, is awarding a special collection of books and DVDs as part of its "We the People Bookshelf" project, to as many as 4,000 libraries nationwide. All public and school libraries are eligible to apply for these collections. The application deadline is Jan. 29, 2010.  

The program is designed to encourage young people to read and understand great literature while exploring themes in American history. This year's theme, "A More Perfect Union," invites reflection on the idea of the United States as a union and will complement library programs observing the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. To stimulate programming, the NEH bookshelf features a DVD edition of Ken Burns' renowned documentary, The Civil War. In April 2010, the NEH and American Library Association will select the libraries to receive 17 books for young readers, bonus materials for readers of all ages, and the option to receive three titles in Spanish. Libraries selected will be required to use the bookshelf selections in programs for young readers in their communities. Public and school libraries can get more information and applications at http://cdpublications.com/freenews/107

Libraries receiving the NEH collection may apply for Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities grants to produce local public programs. Contact Walker Lasiter at 800-909-7990 ext. 132 or lasiter@leh.org.
left_round LEH grant deadlines


Feb. 15, 2010 - Louisiana Publishing Initiative grants, contact LEH Deputy Director John R. Kemp at kemp@leh.org or call 504-620-2481 or 800-909-7990 ext. 116.
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