Post-Katrina race, class and history

Activists and scholars will visit the University of Dayton to examine a variety of issues about the past, present and future of New Orleans, its people and their culture Oct. 16-18 during the 15th annual Humanities Symposium.

“Race, Class and History: New Orleans Post Katrina,” will bring to campus issues of recovery that many members of the UD community have already seen first hand. More than 200 students, faculty and staff have volunteered on Katrina relief projects. Another group of students will bring to the symposium their fresh experience working in New Orleans Oct. 7-10, in a project organized by UD’s Center for Social Concern.

All lectures will be held in Sears Recital Hall in the Jesse Philips Humanities Center on campus and are free and open to the public. The schedule includes:

Ansel Augustine, 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16.
Augustine, coordinator of black youth and young adult ministry, Archdiocese of New Orleans, opens the series. Augustine, whose home was destroyed by Katrina, will speak on “Faith after the Storm.”

Jed Horne, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17.
Horne is the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and author of Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City. The former metro editor of the New Orleans Times Picayune will speak about his book, which the Washington Post credits with providing “new insights into how a ferocious storm, governmental ineptitude and racially tinged inequities conspired to permanently jeopardize one of the nation's cultural gems.” Edward Haas, history department chair at Wright State University and former director of the Louisiana Historical Center, will provide a counterpoint to Horne’s remarks. Haas’s research has compared federal response to Katrina with Hurricane Betsy in 1965.

Gregory Squires, 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18.
Squires is the chair of the George Washington University sociology department and editor of There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class and Hurricane Katrina. His collection of scholarly articles covers topics such as contemporary metropolitan planning, the roles of business and the media, and how the hurricane disproportionately impacted female-headed households.

“There’s no other city dearer to my heart than New Orleans,” said symposium coordinator John Heitmann, UD’s Alumni Chair in the Humanities. “For me, it is one of the most important cities in the world culturally, socially, and economically, and its future is an incredibly critical question.”

Heitmann, a historian who has written extensively on Louisiana, said he expects the symposium speakers, with their range of perspectives and experiences, to bring to light how much remains to be done in New Orleans beyond the physical rebuilding.

“How that rebuilding will be done, will tell us much about our nation and its future,” he said.

For Humanities Symposium information, call 937-229-3490.