<p>After the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Fall of 2005, millions of dollars of Northern philanthropic aid have poured into the Gulf Coast, as have volunteers, rebuilding professionals, and NGO workers. Subsequently, New Orleans has witnessed an explosion of NGOs and Social Enterprises, all intent on rebuilding the city and "doing good" for its residents. However, it was not simply the opening of the economic floodgates that has drawn so many outsiders to the city, it was also the threat to New Orleans' mythic exceptionalism as the so-called "Creole Capital," which has spurred so many willing foot soldiers to action. Drawing on ethnographic material gleaned from participant observation, interviews, and some archival research, this dissertation attempts to demystify the social and cultural forces shaping New Orleans' ongoing process of rebuilding and recovery. Special attention is paid to the role of the arts and of aesthetics as political tools, and forms of capital available to Black actors. Illuminating the political and economic contexts within which the work of community building takes place reveals both the possibilities and the limitations which face Black New Orleanians, embedded in this dynamic landscape. Attending to external forces as well as internal relationships, it becomes clear that Black artist-activists see institution-building as a way to 1) build upon some of the only forms of capital available to Black New Orleanians - that is, social and cultural capital; 2) organize Black communities and begin to exercise some forms of Black Power; and 3) to sustain local social movements.</p> / Dissertation

Zugl.: Trier, Univ., Diss., 2007

Thesis (M.S.)--University of New Orleans, 2004. / Title from electronic submission form. "A thesis ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Hospitality and Tourism Management"--Thesis t.p. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the production and reception of French opera in New Orleans in the first half of the nineteenth century, through a focus on the city’s principal French-language theatre from 1819 to 1859, the Théâtre d’Orléans. Building on the small body of existing scholarship concerning the theatre’s history and repertoire, here I draw upon a greatly expanded range of sources—including court cases, sheet music, and novels—in order to understand more about the ways in which operatic culture shaped and was shaped by city life in this period. New Orleans’s operatic life relied on transatlantic networks of people and materials in order to thrive, and this thesis explores the city’s place within growing global operatic systems in the nineteenth century. The five chapters each reflect on different aspects of operatic translocation and its significance for New Orleans. The first two argue for the centrality of human agency to the development of transatlantic networks of production and performance by examining the management of the theatre and the international movement of singers in turn. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of French grand opéra on New Orleans, arguing that the genre provided a focus for the negotiation of local, national, and international identities among opposing critical (and linguistic) factions within the city, while also providing an impetus for the development of a material culture of opera. Chapter 4 explores opera-inspired composition in New Orleans through a focus on popular sheet music for the piano, in order to problematise our expectations of ‘local creativity’. Finally, Chapter 5 examines travel writing from both sides of the Atlantic in which the Théâtre d’Orléans features, arguing that the ‘idea’ of opera—including the imagined experience of Parisian opera-going— played an important role in articulating the authors’ perceptions of inter-cultural encounter in New Orleans. This thesis, therefore, seeks to unpick the processes involved in transatlantic opera from a number of angles. I resituate New Orleans, arguing that the city was not simply on the musical periphery, but that it was instead an integral part of an increasingly connected operatic world, which nonetheless sustained its own individual theatrical culture. This work, therefore, helps us both to challenge and expand ingrained ideas about French centralisation, North American cultural development, and cultural transfer up to the mid-nineteenth century.

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The research in this paper takes an opportunity to examine the feasibility of developing properties in New Orleans, Louisiana which conform to the Passive House Standard. To date, New Orleans has yet to see a single building built to the energy-efficiency standard. This report begins by describing the concept, the history, and benefits of the Passive House Standard. The report uses the same certification definition of Passive House as Passive House International Standard (PHI). By framing the need for Passive House buildings in light of mounting global and regional consequences resulting from anthropogenic climate change, the report argues that Passive House is the best solution to turning the New Orleans built environment into a carbon-neutral zone and achieving many of the energy reduction commitments made by the Landrieu administration under the Climate Action Strategy for a Resilient New Orleans. The report then examines the feasibility of Passive House from a single-family perspective in one of New Orleans’ hottest neighborhoods, “The Irish Channel” and then overlays the barriers which are specifically hindering the investment logic of Passive House in New Orleans. It is shown that the barriers ultimately align to limit the financial attractiveness of Passive House investment to debt and equity investors as well as developers. Additionally, complications relating to the design, development and construction of Passive House structures are also identified as barriers unique to New Orleans. The final section of this analysis specifically considers how to overcome market barriers by applying opportunistic solutions which are unique to the New Orleans real estate development market. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu