New Orleans Research Articles

Ethics Reform in New Orleans: Progress And Problems Ten Years Post-Katrina

The article examines three New Orleans ethics entities created ten years ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the Office of Independent Police Monitor (OIPM), and the Ethics Review Board (ERB). The OIG and OIPM are oversight bodies; only the ERB has enforcement power.The OIG proved successful and productive, issuing many reports and claiming city government savings of nearly $60,000,000. The presence of a well-regarded OIG in Orleans Parish has provoked consideration and implementation of the concept in adjacent parishes.The OIPM instituted a police-community mediation program, engaged with a federal consent decree, and monitored critical incident reports. But the OIPM’s effectiveness would be enhanced by charter reform, giving the office financial and operational independence.The ERB functioned well in selecting the first two Inspectors General in 2007 and 2009. But during 2010-2014 the ERB declined to exercise its ethics enforcement authority; repeatedly violated the open meetings law; neglected the opportunity to recommend improvements to the city ethics code; and fell out of compliance with diversity requirements, lacking any women, Hispanics, or Asians among its membership. Its problems were not structural or systemic; all can be addressed by improved policy decisions and performance.The article recommends several strategies for improving overall functioning of the city’s ethics entities and concludes that New Orleans is a stronger, more resilient community because of the three local ethics bodies, all of which only began operating post-Katrina.

Strolling Through Madame Mandeville's Garden: The Real and Imagined Landscape of Eighteenth Century New Orleans, Louisiana

Abstract Gardens can be seen as an avenue of inquiry for understanding the creation and negotiation of social identity. New Orleans is well known for its beautiful gardens, which date as far back as the French colonial period. Excavations at the Rising Sun Hotel site in New Orleans have revealed unique garden contexts from the French and Spanish colonial periods (1722–1796). In this paper, we present the results of the paleoethnobotanical study of samples collected from this unique context, comparing the French and Spanish colonial gardens to each other, and to other known colonial gardens. The results provide a general reflection of the types of plants present or near the gardens, and indicate broader ecological conditions of the natural environment surrounding the city of New Orleans during the early to late eighteenth century. The early colonists lived in a fertile and disturbed landscape, one that likely encroached upon the formal gardens and spaces created by the colonists. Thus, although gardening w...

The Long Term Recovery of New Orleans' Population after Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina created a catastrophe in the city of New Orleans when the storm surge caused the levee system to fail on August 29, 2005. The destruction of housing displaced hundreds of thousands of residents for varying lengths of time, often permanently. It also revealed gaps in our knowledge of how population is recovered after a disaster causes widespread destruction of urban infrastructure, housing and workplaces, and how mechanisms driving housing recovery often produce unequal social, spatial and temporal population recovery. In this article, I assemble social, spatial and temporal explanatory frameworks for housing and population recovery and then review research on mobility - both evacuation and migration - after Hurricane Katrina. The review reveals a need for a comprehensive social, spatial and temporal framework for explaining inequality in population recovery and displacement. It also shows how little is known about in-migrants and permanent out-migrants after a disaster.

Metabolic Monitoring Falls Short for Dementia Patients

Metabolic Monitoring Falls Short for Dementia Patients

Balancing Risks of Treating Parkinson's Psychosis

Balancing Risks of Treating Parkinson's Psychosis

Historical Peregrinations of New Orleans's French Superior Council and Spanish Judicial Records

The city of New Orleans is home to extensive notarial and judicial manuscript records that document, often in minute detail, economic and legal activity in the Lower Mississippi Valley during the French (1699–1768) and Spanish (1769–1803) colonial periods. The legal custodianship of New Orleans's largest colonial period archive has changed hands quite often over the last three centuries. This article recounts the peregrinations of these documents and their insertion into the collections of the Notarial Archives Division of the Orleans Parish Clerk of Civil Court's office (NONA) and Old U.S. Mint of the Louisiana State Museum (LSM).

Characteristics and genotype profiles of antiretroviral-naïve patients entering a Southern US HIV outpatient clinic 2009–2012

The US city of New Orleans was ranked second in the nation for estimated HIV case rates in 2011. Opt-out testing was established at the Interim Louisiana Hospital in New Orleans in 2013. The majority of new diagnoses were referred to the HIV outpatient program. We conducted a retrospective chart review of newly referred antiretroviral-naïve patients establishing HIV care between January 2009 and June 2013 to characterise demographic and genotype profiles to assist in clinical management and needed services. Of the eligible 226 patients, 68% were men, and 88% were African American. Nearly half of the study patients were younger than 35 years of age. Forty-six percent had an initial CD4 count <200 cells/mm(3), and 39% had a HIV viral load >100,000 copies/mL. The antiretroviral class with the most common major mutation was the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) where K103N was the most common major NNRTI mutation at presentation. We observed that male patients showed more advanced disease with later presentation to care, confirming the need for earlier HIV diagnosis. When considering initial antiretroviral therapy, baseline genotype information is encouraged, particularly if considering a NNRTI-based regimen.

Learn how CSAOs become college presidents

NEW ORLEANS, LA. — If you aspire to the college presidency but don't know how to get there or even if it's a realistic goal, you're in luck.

Learn how to tap into technology, social media to boost student engagement

NEW ORLEANS, LA. — When students aren't making connections or friends easily, then you know they're having a hard time adjusting to life on your campus. And challenges to student engagement can significantly impact student development and success.

Use the arts to creatively, effectively address Title IX education, awareness mandates

NEW ORLEANS, LA. — Title IX education and awareness programming — check! It's one thing to make sure you've met the mandates. But it's quite another to make sure the information actually got through to everyone in a way they could absorb and apply it.

Induction of homologous and cross-reactive GII.4-specific blocking antibodies in children after GII.4 New Orleans norovirus infection.

Noroviruses (NoVs) are major causative agents of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in children worldwide and the most common viral cause of AGE in countries where rotavirus incidence has been eliminated by vaccination. Previous infections with the dominant GII.4 NoV genotype confer only partial protection against evolving immune escape variants that emerge every few years. The objective of this work was to investigate GII.4-specific homologous and cross-reactive antibody responses in young children after NoV GII.4-2009 New Orleans (NO) infection. Virus-like particles (VLPs) representing GII.4-1999, GII.4-2009 NO, and GII.4-2012 Sydney genotypes were used in ELISA and histo-blood group antigen blocking assays to examine acute and convalescent sera of five children <2 years of age infected with GII.4-2009 NO. GII.4-2009 NO infection induced IgG seroconversion to all three tested NoV GII.4 variants. Homologous blocking antibodies to GII.4-2009 NO were detected in each convalescent sera. Fourfold increase in cross-blocking antibodies to GII.4-2012 Sydney was observed in 4/5 subjects, but no child developed cross-blocking antibodies to GII.4-1999. In conclusion, antibodies induced in young children after norovirus GII.4 infection are targeted against the causative variant and may cross-protect against strains that are closely related, but not with more distinct and earlier GII.4 genotypes.

52nd Society for Photographic Education National Conference

Research Article| May 01 2015 52nd Society for Photographic Education National Conference Karen vanMeenen Karen vanMeenen KAREN vanMeenen is editor of Afterimage. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2015) 42 (6): 6–7. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2015.42.6.6 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Karen vanMeenen; 52nd Society for Photographic Education National Conference. Afterimage 1 May 2015; 42 (6): 6–7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2015.42.6.6 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2015 Afterimage/Visual Studies Workshop, unless otherwise noted. Reprints require written permission and acknowledgement of previous publication in Afterimage.2015 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Desire and Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory, by Lynnell L. Thomas

Desire and Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory, by Lynell L. Thomas. Durham, Duke University Press, 2014. xii, 272 pp. $24.95 US (paperback) In this crisply written account, Lynell Thomas provides a fascinating exploration of tourism in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. The tourist geography was especially apparent in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when it steered tourists and consumers to heavily policed tourist zones and restricted or discouraged access to nontourist black neighbourhoods that were automatically presumed to be risky, unsafe, or violent (p. 2). Before and after Hurricane Katrina many commercial guides offered tourists a selective and occasionally false New Orleans historical narrative. Commercial guides and tourist literature focused on the city's colonial historical connections with Europe. At the same time, however, mainstream commercial guides softened or omitted the histories of those of African origin who lived under French, Spanish, and American slave regimes. Even when mainstream tour operators acknowledged Africans' existence in early New Orleans, they did so in narratives highlighting the multicultural city. In her account of one company's year 2000 historical narrative, Thomas notes that guides spoke of Africans' roles in the building of New Orleans, but claimed that they lived in a racially exceptional city. Guides particularly emphasized the importance of the Creole in the city's history. The company's definition of Creole acknowledged the centrality of West African culture, but also described Creoles as an influential elite class without mention of poor or enslaved Creoles. While the tour company included black in its narrative, the company's failure to vindicate and empower its black characters was apparent (p. 81). Thomas found for example, that guides told the story of a New Orleans' slave named Toussaint without mentioning Toussaint Louverture, whose leadership in a slave revolution contributed to the establishment of the first free black nation in the Caribbean in 1804. Naming an enslaved child Toussaint in a slave society was a significant statement of identity and an act of resistance. Some New Orleans tour companies offered counternarratives to the selective and occasionally fictitious historical accounts Thomas describes in her third chapter. Thomas begins her fourth chapter with a description of the origins of the black heritage movement in New Orleans which emerged simultaneously with the modem civil rights and Black Power movements. Black business and civic leaders established an organization in 1986 and the Greater New Orleans Black Tourism Network (GNOBTN) in 1990. Thomas argues that the GNOBTN challenged the mainstream New Orleans tourism image. …

Rent Seeking in Successive Monopoly: The Case of Casino Gambling in New Orleans

This study explores how rent seeking in the U.S. casino gambling industry relates to unique issues concerning industry structure. To do so, we apply mathematical and graphical approaches from industrial economics to the history of land-based casino gambling in New Orleans, Louisiana, a history that includes public franchising, successive monopoly, vertical separation and integration, and rent seeking costs. Our conceptual approach highlights how local governments can gain advantages over higher forms of government (e.g., state government) in rent seeking contests.

Survivorship of the Formosan Subterranean Termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in a Hypoxic Environment

The Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki, is a structural pest of major economic importance in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the United States Gulf coast on August 29, 2005, inundating approximately 80% of the city. Though termite colonies survived prolonged inundation, the survival mechanisms of colonies have yet to be fully understood. One hypothesis is that C. formosanus colonies survived within pockets of trapped air within their nesting system during times of flooding. This hypothesis was tested by measuring mortality of groups of 20, 40, and 60 termites in airtight environments maintained at three different temperatures. Groups of 20 termites maintained at 10, 21, and 32°C reached 100% mortality at 89.5, 52.0, and 3.5 days, respectively. Groups of 40 termites maintained at 10, 21, and 32°C reached 100% mortality at 89.5, 51.0, and 3.5 days, respectively. Groups of 60 termites maintained at 10, 21, and 32°C yielded 100% mortality at 57.5, 22.5, and 1.0 day, respectively. Field colonies of C. formosanus established before Hurricane Katrina survived up to three weeks of flooding, and our findings suggest that is possible for inundated colonies to survive this prolonged flooding by remaining within air pockets located in their nesting system until flood waters recede.

Evaluating elements of trust: Race and class in risk communication in post-Katrina New Orleans.

This study seeks to determine the relative influence of race and class on trust in sources of messages of environmental risk in post-Katrina New Orleans. It poses two hypotheses to test that influence: H1-African-Americans ("Blacks") trust risk message sources less than European American ("Whites") do and H2-The higher the socioeconomic class, the lower the trust in risk message sources. A 37-question telephone survey (landlines and cellphones) was conducted in Orleans Parish in 2012 (n = 414). The overall margin of error was ±4.8% at a 95% confidence interval. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the first hypothesis was rejected, while the second was supported. Additional data analysis revealed that frequency of use of sources of risk information appears to be a positive factor in building trust.

The New Orleans Lakefront

Situated on a crescent-shaped swath of largely swampy land between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, the city of New Orleans has limited ability to expand its geographical boundaries. New Orleanians’ efforts to expand and develop the Milneberg area of its northern edge began at the end of the eighteenth century but did not reach full realization until the middle of the twentieth century. Though established as a destination for the traveling elite, the area quickly transitioned into a wide-open community with recreational opportunities for all strata of New Orleans society. By the middle of the twentieth century, governmental and private developers worked together to create an amusement park, four mixed-income neighborhoods, numerous institutional properties, and public parks on the new lakefront. The history of this development traces the interplay of public and private forces on decisions of land use and urban planning.

In The Big Easy

In The Big Easy

The Drama of History in Francophone New Orleans

On January 1, 1824, English-speaking population of New Orleans celebrated grand opening of Theatre, lauding advent of Bards own and rise of our Drama in Crescent City (qtd. in Smither 41). For city's francophone residents, this event marked a new stage in ongoing battle for survival. Until opening of Theatre, French drama and opera had dominated city. Beginning in 1792, when Louisiana was still under Spanish rule, French theatricals were regularly performed at Theatre de la Rue St. Pierre, Theatre St. Philippe, and Theatre d'Orleans. After Louisiana Purchase, more and more Anglo-Americans settled permanently in New Orleans and began to compete with city's established French-speaking population for political, economic, and sway. The growing influence of anglophone newcomers alarmed francophone residents, who feared for continued existence of their community. Over time, tensions between two populations turned open hostility and came, according to historian Joseph Tregle, perilously close to armed violence (153). In 1836, city of New Orleans was formally divided along ethnic lines to prevent such an escalation. This article examines how anglophone and francophone struggles for political influence and sovereignty in New Orleans were transported local playhouses. Following Elizabeth Maddock Dillon's conceptualization of early playhouse as a cultural site at which dynamics of political belonging, modern sovereignty, and aesthetics [were] coarticulated (21), I consider how drama native to Crescent City and performed at local theaters at once reflected and helped negotiate continuing tensions between city's multiple linguistic communities. I focus in particular on how Louisiana's French-speaking community used theater as a powerful weapon in battle for survival. On stage and in auditorium, Louisiana's francophone population defined, defended, and disseminated its French while simultaneously negotiating its place in city of New Orleans and broader nation. Conceiving of French-language theater as a site of affirmation, this article explores relationship between institution of theater, written drama, and ethnic in antebellum Louisiana. The correlation between theater and formation has been studied extensively in recent scholarship on early theater. Jeffrey H. Richards, for example, has described theater as [o]ne of registers and molders of identity (17). Heather S. Nathans, Jason Shaffer, and S. E. Wilmer, among others, have specifically linked emergence of theater as an institution to formation of a national American (1,13,1). In her most recent study, Dillon has pointed to limitations of using the familiar narrative of nationalism to examine early theater. Instead, she proposes the study of theatre in Atlantic rather than national terms as a way to throw into relief vitality of theatre as a form in colonial Americas and early national United States (20). While fully agreeing with necessity to expand any investigation of early theater beyond national boundaries of United States, I turn to a multilingual rather than an Atlantic paradigm in order to tease out complexities and multifaceted relations of early stage. (1) Taking as an example theatrical scene of antebellum New Orleans, this article focuses on ways in which drama native to Louisiana and its production in local theater expressed and shaped local concerns of Crescent City's transnational, polyglot communities. In doing so, I build on work of scholars such as Werner Sollors, who has highlighted importance of multilingual sources to creation of literature and culture. …

Desire and Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory by Lynnell L. Thomas (review)

Reviewed by: Desire and Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory by Lynnell L. Thomas Yuya Kiuchi DESIRE AND DISASTER IN NEW ORLEANS: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory. By Lynnell L. Thomas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2014. Lynnell Thomas, native of New Orleans and an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, demonstrates how tourism contributed to one-sided and often distorted popular memories about New Orleans. On the one hand, New Orleans is a very popular tourist destination. It is a place of “desire.” Many tourists from all over the U.S. visit the city looking for African-American culture including music and food. On the other hand, it is also a city characterized by “disaster,” not just because of Hurricane Katrina, but also because of racism and politics. Commonly, New Orleans is viewed as a city that has overcome various hurdles and now welcomes visitors from all over the U.S. and the world. Thomas suggests, however, that such a view on New Orleans is far from its reality. The city’s history of tourism has not been simple. Thomas explores this gap between “desire” (what tourists see) and “disaster” (what tourists do not see) by examining the ways in which African American tour guides, tour owners, and the tourism industry used their own Black heritage to reveal the reality of New Orleans. In other words, the book records how African American heritage tourism enabled more accurate remembering of the city’s history, interpretation of its racial and cultural dynamics, and establishment of “a blueprint for reenvisioning New Orleans’s future (25). To provide historical contexts, Thomas outlines the recent history of New Orleans tourism. Although she recognizes the positive role that tourism played in New Orleans and for its African American population, especially after the civil rights period, she is critical of the negative impact it had on the city’s Black population. As New Orleans became a popular tourist destination, African-American culture such as jazz music, parades, voodoo ceremonies, and creole cuisine were turned into objects of consumption. Additionally, many Black tourism workers were often confined to low-paying jobs. Although such a narrative about gentrification and commodification of African American culture that mostly benefits non-Black businesses is common outside of New Orleans, Thomas’s work provides valuable and little-documented evidence of African-American heritage tours resisting the mainstream tourism industry and discourse while simultaneously “craft[ing] counternarratives to the city’s racialized mythology” (12). For Thomas, New Orleans is not only a popular tourist destination, but is a place where popular memories and public policies are discussed and formulated. In other words, for many African Americans, tourism has become a political tool to showcase their Black heritage and to create the future of the city based on proper historical memories. In the process of revealing the intricate relationship between “desire” and “disaster,” Thomas touches upon various facets of the city’s history. For example, commodification and consumption of African American culture that was often problematic in itself also enhanced the tourism industry’s interests in Black culture, leading to the increased African-American cultural representation in New Orleans. It eventually translated to the rise of Black political agency. Furthermore, African American guides utilized their own racial and ethnic background in their tours by showing parts of New Orleans that mainstream tour guides intentionally or unintentionally miss or ignore. Thomas’s case study [End Page 114] about Le Monde Creole French Quarter Courtyards Tour also reflects similar revisionist efforts to recognize the city’s pluralistic ethnic background. Since 2005, much has been written about New Orleans. Michael Eric Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water (2006), Keith Wailoo and Karen O’Neill’s Katrina’s Imprint (2010), and others have captured the racial dynamics of the city suffering from the consequence of the disaster. Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke (2006) also recorded the lives of New Orleans’s residents. Desire and Disaster is a significant addition to these works on the city and its African American residents. First, it reminds its readers that the city’s recovery was not an equal process. Many...