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Call for 2012 LEH Award Nominations
|  The LEH is now accepting nominations for the 2012 annual awards for outstanding achievement in and contributions to the humanities. Winners will be honored in 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. Nominations, which must be received in the LEH office no later than 5 p.m. Nov. 15, should be addressed to: Chair, Humanities Awards Committee, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 938 Lafayette St., Suite 300, New Orleans, LA 70113. Nominations also may be faxed to Michael Sartisky, PhD at 504-529-2358 or emailed to sartisky@leh.org. 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. The LEH Board of Directors will select nominees who best exemplify one or more of the above categories. No single humanities area will receive primary consideration, but the nominees' activities must reflect one or more disciplines in the humanities. Awards criteria include: - Louisiana Humanist of the Year: The Louisiana Humanist of the Year award honors individuals who have encouraged public consideration of issues central to the humanities; participated in public programs in libraries, museums, or other cultural institutions; or published important works in the humanities. Last year's winner was Dr. Dana Kress of Centenary College, founder of the only French language newspaper in the United States, operated and written by college students, Le Tintamarre, and establishing Les Cahiers du Tintamarre and Les Editions Tintamarre - a press dedicated to re-printing, and printing for the first time, texts from the lost and suppressed history of French Louisiana.
- Award for Lifetime Contributions: Honors citizens who have supported and been involved in public appreciation of issues central to the humanities. The 2011 winner of this award was Patricia Gay, Director of the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans. The first recipient of this award was the Lindy Boggs in 1992.
- Chair's Award for Institutional Support: Honors those corporations or institutions that have made major sustained contributions to support public humanities. Last year's recipient was the Helis Foundation.
- Michael P. Smith Award for Documentary Photography: Nominations may be for a complete body of work or for a single project. The 2011 winner was documentary photographer Debbie Fleming Caffery of Breaux Bridge.
- Humanities Documentary Film of the Year Award: Awarded to the documentary film that best exemplifies scholarship on Louisiana topics or by Louisiana documentary filmmakers. Last year this award went to Walker Percy: A Documentary Film, by Winston Riley of New Orleans.
- Individual Achievement in the Humanities Award: Acknowledges the extraordinary qualities of people in their participation in public humanities events. The 2011 recipient was Georgiann Potts of Monroe, Special Projects Coordinator at the University of Louisiana-Monroe and a program director for the LEH's Readings in Literature and Culture, or RELIC, a special adult reading program that partners with local libraries.
- Public Humanities Programming Award: Acknowledges extraordinary institutional achievement in public humanities events. The 2011 award went to Jane Hood and the Nebraska Humanities Council, responsible for the second highest number of affiliate PRIME TIME sites in any state.
- Humanities Book of the Year Award: Awarded to the book that best exemplifies scholarship on Louisiana topics or by Louisiana writers. Receiving the 2011 award was Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities, published by the University Press of Mississippi and edited by Albert Valdman, Ph.D., and Kevin J. Rottet, Ph.D.
- Humanities Teacher of the Year Award: An annual award will be made to an outstanding elementary, middle or high school teacher who exemplifies excellence in the teaching of the humanities: English, foreign language, history, social studies, folk life, and art or music history, or who have participated in public humanities programs.
For additional information about the annual humanities awards, contact LEH President Michael Sartisky, PhD at sartisky@leh.org or visit the LEH website at www.leh.org. |
The Smithsonian comes to Lake Providence
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The Journey Stories traveling exhibit continues its statewide tour of rural museums with a stop at the Louisiana State Cotton Museum in Lake Providence.
October 22 - December 3, 2011
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Monday through Saturday
Louisiana State Cotton Museum
7162 Highway 65 North
Lake Providence, LA 71254
318-559-2041
cotton@sos.louisiana.gov
Program Schedule:
November 5
10 AM - 4 PM
Civil War Reenactment by groups from Northeast Louisiana and Southeast Arkansas
November 12
10 AM - Noon
Children's Fall Cotton Festival with games and creative activities for children ages 3-10
November 19
10 AM - 2 PM
Poverty Point Indian Presentation with National Park Service Rangers telling and showing Indian life skills
November 26
10 AM - 2 PM
Cotton Country Trade Days with old time skills, antique cars, tractors and much more
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Big Ideas in Small Books by Helen Clare Taylor
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The children's books selected for PRIME TIME Family Reading Time can be deceptively cute and charming. When examined through the lens of humanities themes such as identity, greed, justice, and responsibility, the literature becomes much more than picture books. It is transformed into stories that mirror the culture, lives and daily experiences of the families who participate in the program. It presents issues, beliefs, and ideas that people from a variety of backgrounds can relate to and discuss in a meaningful way with the proper guidance. Imagine PRIME TIME's linkage of the humanities and children's literature explained in a lovely English accent.
That very thing occurred during the January 2011 PRIME TIME training workshop when Helen Clare Taylor, Ph.D., Director of the Master's in Liberal Arts program and Professor of English at Louisiana State University at Shreveport and long-time PRIME TIME scholar and consultant, debuted her keynote address "Big Ideas in Small Books" during the Finding the Humanities in Children's Literature session. Now in print form, Dr. Taylor's speech is a wonderful contribution to the PRIME TIME training workshop staple that originated with Dr. Robert Becker's "Agamemnon Among the Bunnies" and has been maintained by Dr. Michael Sartisky's "It's All Greek to Me."
We are proud to add Helen's keynote to the collection of seminal articles on the PRIME TIME methodology. We thank her for continuing to commit her time and expertise to maintaining the quality and growth of PRIME TIME.
"Big Ideas in Small Books" is featured in the Fall 2011 issue of Louisiana Cultural Vistas. Click here to read the article in its entirety.
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November Events: PRIME TIME Family Reading Time
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Federation of State Humanities Councils Annual Conference The annual conference of the Federation of State Humanities Councils will be held from November 3rd - 6th in St. Petersburg, Florida. In addition to celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the first state humanities councils, the theme for this year's gathering of council representatives emphasizes "Re-Imagining the American Dream." According to conference organizers, our nation is amidst "...the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, wars of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq, the wake of the environmental disaster of the BP oil spill, and the increasingly uncivil and polarizing rhetoric of our national politics challenging the very governance of our republic." Accordingly, this year's conference will address the significant question: "What does 'The American Dream' mean to the citizens of our nation?" The LEH agrees that this is a timely question. PRIME TIME recently completed its highly successful, NEH-funded project Common Ground which allowed participants to explore humanities themes and issues that are closely associated with the American identity and the various interpretations of what it means to be an American. On Saturday, November 5th from 1:30 - 3:30 p.m., LEH staff members will facilitate a session titled "Exploring American Dreams and Realities with PRIME TIME" along with experienced PRIME TIME practitioners from around the country. The session was planned as part of the "Hands on Humanities" portion of the conference which allows attendees to have an "up close and personal" experience with successful humanities programs. The session will begin with a PRIME TIME Sampler, a participatory presentation of how PRIME TIME engages economically and educationally disadvantaged families in a high quality humanities educational experience. An experienced storyteller and scholar team will bring a selected story to life, engage the participants, and facilitate a discussion rooted in themes and ideas that matter to adults and children alike. The session will conclude with a presentation of Stemming the Tide of Intergenerational Illiteracy: A Ten-Year Impact Study of PRIME TIME by LEH staff members. Speakers include: Harry Coverston, Ph.D. , University of Central Florida; Antoinette Griffin, Orange County Library System; Patricia Putman, Florida Humanities Council; Kathleen Pool, Kentucky Humanities Council and Miranda Restovic, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities as moderator. The LEH and PRIME TIME staff are delighted to take part in the annual conference once again. Please visit the conference website for additional information.
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January 2012 Training Workshop Dates
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 The PRIME TIME Training Workshop has been scheduled for January 14 - 15, 2012. The workshop will be held at the Louisiana Humanities Center at Turners' Hall in New Orleans.
The PRIME TIME Training Workshop includes intense review the program methodology as well as practice of strategies for planning and implementing the program. Affiliate project directors should begin considering whether any team members will need training and prepare to alert the PRIME TIME staff as soon as possible. Louisiana and affiliate trainees will receive preliminary details on the training in October. All others should contact the PRIME TIME staff with questions regarding upcoming training opportunities.
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Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine
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With the holiday season fast approaching, make shopping for friends, family and coworkers easier by giving them a gift subscription to Louisiana Cultural Vistas. A mere $20 brings the best of our state's literature, photography, historical scholarship and humanities events to Louisianians and expats the world over. Subscribe by logging on to www.leh.org.
The Winter 2011-12 edition of the LEH's award-winning magazine will debut in mid-December with a cover story offering a sneak preview of a new book of Louisiana art debuting in 2012 to commemorate the state's bicentennial. Other topics will include:
- A history of Prohibition in Shreveport and how the effort to ban alcohol in the early 20th-century reshaped that city's economic destiny
- A profile of Louisiana's newly named poet laureate, Julie Kane of Natchitoches
- Photographs by renowned photographer Lee Friedlander of jazz musicians in New Orleans from the 1950s and '60s
- Excerpts from a biography of Rachel Jackson, wife of President Andrew Jackson, focusing on her visits to New Orleans following her husband's victory at the 1814 Battle of Chalmette
Upon the completion of each issue, editors Michael Sartisky and David Johnson discuss the magazine's content on the radio program "All Things New Orleans," hosted by Paul Maassen, general manager of WWNO FM 89.9, an NPR affiliate. Podcasts of past interviews can be heard by logging on to www.wwno.org.
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Encountering All Things Louisiana through the RELIC Programs
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The reading and discussion format of RELIC programs is ideal for allowing Louisianans to see the state's past and its people's experiences through different viewpoints, types of content, and settings. Several program subjects have engaged Louisiana's readers this fall by presenting differing perspectives. In addition to the history program "The Louisiana Purchase" examined last month, Louisiana literature opens up many opportunities for encounter in Louisiana. What better title for a RELIC program on this subject than the literature program "Encounter in Louisiana?"
"We looked at our 'encounters' as ways to examine personal and public identities, tracing the representation of 'encounter' from Greek mythology to the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, adding a very short story by Louisiana writer John Biguenet entitled 'An Encounter at Nightfall,' reported RELIC scholar Dr. Virginia Jones about the Alexandria program. With over 20 persons in attendance at each of the six sessions, there was plenty of opportunity for participants to make connections over time and cultures with themselves. "We realized how each novel in the series explored Louisiana identity as well as varied personal identities," Jones noted, adding "we have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about who we are from the various perspectives offered by Gaines, Grau, Gautreaux and Toole."
With tropical storm Lee bearing down on the Louisiana coast, the Covington library feared that it would have a scant audience for its program's beginning. "We've had about 30 people each night. Even with a big rain last Wednesday, we had a full house," reported Dr. Richard Louth of SLU English. "Each session was very discussion-based, with an emphasis being put on the audience's observations and questions," Louth noted, and he valued the fact that a appreciating others' views was an encounter of sorts that brought people closer to each other: "Everyone has had something to contribute at one point or another. There's a real feeling of community to this group."
Although RELIC programs such as "The Louisiana Purchase" and "Encounter in Louisiana" may draw different types of audiences, the reading and discussion format, providing a framework for the use of the immense historical and literary materials available, offer endless discoveries for the readers in our communities in our state.
Despite substantial reductions in funding from the state government, the RELIC programs endure because many libraries raise local contributions or budget for them. They cannot envision their missions without them.
Next edition: the Winter/ Spring RELIC Program Schedule takes shape...
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