RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
KATRINA, NEW ORLEANS, RACE, & THE FATE OF THE NATION
May 12-13, 2006
Hyatt Regency Hotel

A Forum for Cross-Disciplinary Exchange involving Rutgers faculty on questions of race, ethnicity, and regional transformation

Identification of major themes and problems emerging in the wake of Katrina, and New Orleans rebuilding and recovery

Planning a Fall 2007 conference and an edited volume to deepen cross-disciplinary analysis and exploration of emerging themes

RSVP TO:  Maureen DeKaser at dekaser@fas.rutgers.edu

Click on participant's name for paper abstract

DISCUSSION SCHEDULE
FRIDAY MAY 12, 2006
8:30 – 9:00 BREAKFAST

9:00 – 9:30 a.m. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS
Keith Wailoo (History/Institute for Health Policy)  On Katrina’s emerging themes, the Fall conference, plans for the edited volume, and multi-disciplinary scholarship on race and ethnicity

Roland Anglin (Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy) On New Orleans, the rebuilding process, and New Jersey connections

9:30 – 11:00 a.m. I. VULNERABILITY AND RACIAL GEOGRAPHY:
LEVEES, FLOOD PLAINS, BUSES, AND DISASTER AREAS
Mia Bay (History) On the question of who could and could not get out of New Orleans, and how they traveled, with reference to the history of racial divisions in access to transportation in the state, as well the racial geography of New Orleans

William M. Rodgers III (Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy)
On race, class and natural disasters beyond Hurricane’s Katrina and Wilma – a look at disparate racial and class impacts across natural disasters

Karen O’Neill (Human Ecology)  On the lack of coordination between local land use planning and federal flood control decisions that has helped produce settlement patterns along the lower Mississippi River that make poor African-Americans and whites vulnerable

Roland Anglin (Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy) On levees, wetlands, the policy environment, and the planning choices that left the residents of New Orleans and other places in the Gulf Coast vulnerable

11:00 – 11:15 a.m. MORNING BREAK

11:15 – 12:30 p.m. II. BODIES, HEALTH AND MENTAL HEALTH IN DISASTER ZONES
Keith Wailoo (History/Health Policy) On the pictures of disease, health, and illness that emerged in the wake of Katrina, and their broader historical, cultural, and policy significance

Nancy Boyd-Franklin (Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology) A video and discussion on psychological trauma resulting from race, racism, and perceived racism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, based on training for Red Cross and mental health volunteers.

Ann Fabian (American Studies/History)  On the startlingly visible bodies of Katrina, the rituals improvised around the corpses, the great social and economic cleavage that the storm’s destruction exposed

Evie Shockley (English).  On reading the aftermath of Katrina as an instance of “gothic homelessness,” which describes the condition of people who, like African Americans, are marginalized, disempowered, and underresourced by society's powerbrokers' use of ideologies of home.

12:30 – 2:00 p.m. LUNCH

FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006 continued
2:00 – 3:20 p.m. III. SITUATING KATRINA IN HISTORY
Donna Murch (History)  On Louisana as a unique historical repository of African American sensibility and Black power identity formation

Nancy Sinkoff (Jewish Studies/History) On the relationships of Jews and African Americans and others in the city, and the “Black-Jewish Alliance.”

Dorothy Sue Cobble (Labor Studies/History)  On the failure of labor policy in Katrina’s aftermath and the dismantling of New Deal labor rights and standards 

Minkah Makalani (History) On how gradations of color structurally informed Katrina’s impact on black people in New Orleans, and the enduring importance of that city’s complex history of race to contemporary social structures and racial ideologies

David Greenberg** (Journalism and Media Studies/History) On Katrina and the 1927 Mississippi River Flood, the American public demand for federal relief services, and tensions between assigning public responsibilities to private actors and activist government in Reagan-Bush America

David Eng** (English)  On two themes: the presence of immigrants and "illegal immigration" in New Orleans; and aerial pictures of Katrina as a "mass ornament" of our times  ** (not attending this workshop, but participating in Katrina project)

Deborah Gray White** (History) On the post-Civil Rights and post-modern black American response    

3:20 – 3:30 p.m. AFTERNOON BREAK

3:30 – 4:15 p.m. IV.  RACE, REBUILDING, AND THE PRESERVATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
Alison Isenberg (History) On urban design, preservation ideologies and the racialized dimensions of rebuilding

Niki Dickerson (Labor Studies and Employment Relations)  On the potential employment barriers facing displaced Gulf Coast residents, and patterns of residential segregation and racial employment inequality

Brent Edwards** (English) On the Archiving of the Jazz City in the context of reconstruction

V. LABOR, ETHNICITY, AND PROBLEMS OF REGIONAL TRANSFORMATION
Josie Saldana** (English) On the fate of New Orleans large immigrant communities, the role of Latin American immigrant workers in the clean up of the city, and the ongoing battle against undocumented immigration from the South 

John Aiello (Psychology)

James K. Mitchell (Geology)

** (not in attendance at this workshop, but participating in Katrina project)

4:15 – 4:45 p.m. COMMENTARIES AND DISCUSSION
5:00 P.M. WINE AND CHEESE RECEPTION
_________________________________________________________
MAY 13, 2006 SATURDAY
8:30 – 9:30 a.m. BREAKFAST

9:30 – 11:00 p.m. GENERAL DISCUSSION OF MAJOR THEMES AND THE PLAN FOR AN EDITED VOLUME
Keith Wailoo, Roland Anglin, Mia Bay

11:00 a.m. WORKSHOP ADJOURNS