In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, LSU Libraries presents “Tempests Talks,” a series of public programs held in conjunction with the Lecture Hall Gallery exhibition, “Tempests: Storms in the Archives.”

The line-up includes three brown bag lunches, a film screening, and a presentation. Speakers include LSU and Tulane professors, museum founders, a Louisiana Sea Grant film director, and the exhibition co-curators. Topics include citizen-driven policy, coastal erosion and protection, climate change, disaster response and recovery, cultural preservation and resiliency, and the importance of longitudinal research. Please see below for the full schedule.

Louisiana hurricanes have left their mark in correspondence, photographs, fictional accounts, federal legislation, and oral histories housed in LSU Libraries Special Collections. Archival materials such as these make it possible to take a long view of these storms, revealing recurring themes that can inform social, political and environmental policy making.

“Tempests” features historical materials from statehood in 1812 to the mid-2000s, in a variety of formats and languages, including personal correspondence, political papers, literature and audio excerpts from oral history interviews.

SCHEDULE:

August 25, 11:30-12:30
Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall
"Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum: Remembering the Past, Sharing Stories of the Present, and Planning for the Future"
Rebecca Cooper, Operations Director & Co-Founder, Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum
Stephanie Dragoon, Curator & Co-Founder, Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum

August 28, 1:45-2:30
Room 1014 - Digital Media Center
"Storms in the Archives: What Oral Histories and Special Collections Can Tell Us"
Part of the Katrina at 10: A Decade of Research and Response, Louisiana State University
Leah Wood Jewett, Exhibitions Coordinator, LSU Libraries Special Collections
Jennifer A. Cramer, Director, T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, LSU Libraries

August 31: 11:30-12:30
Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall
Brown Bag: "Disaster Recovery and Creating Resilience: Evidence across Communities"
Dr. Michelle Meyer, Assistant Professor, LSU Department of Sociology

September 2: 11:30-12:30
Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall
Brown Bag: Citizen Driven Policy
Dr. Craig Colten, Carl O. Sauer Professor, LSU Department of Geography and Anthropology
Dr. Amy Lesen, Research Associate Professor, Tulane-Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research

September 8: 11:30-1:00
Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall
Film Screening: “The Telling Tide”
Darcy Wilkins, Community Resilience Extension Associate, Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department, LSU AgCenter