Joan DeJean is Trustee Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. This interview is based on her new book, Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast (Basic Books, 2022). JF: What led you...
New Orleans
The Author’s Corner with Kathryn Olivarius
Kathryn Olivarius is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. This interview is based on her new book, Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom (Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2022). JF: What led you to write Necropolis? KO:...
It is finally okay to teach and play jazz in New Orleans public schools
Here is Juliette Arcodia at NBC News: New Orleans has long been known as the birthplace of jazz music, but for exactly a century that genre has been technically forbidden in the entire public school system. The rule was added...
American Historical Association Annual Meeting Omicron update
Here is the latest on the AHA meeting in New Orleans. I received this in my inbox yesterday: The AHA is carefully monitoring the news about the Omicron variant, particularly in the New Orleans area, as COVID-19 numbers spiral around...
Racism and interstate highways
Joe Biden’s new infrastructure plan singled out the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans as a “racist highway. The plan sets aside $20 billion to “reconnect” neighborhoods that were racially divided by highway construction. Over at NPR, Noel King interviews New...
Winners of the 2021 Bancroft Prize announced
Andy Horowitz won for Katrina: A History, 1915-2015. Claudio Saint won for Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. Here is the press release from Columbia University: Columbia University Libraries has announced that two...