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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

New Orleans Revisited: Notes Of A Native Daughter, Lynnell L. Thomas Aug 2015

New Orleans Revisited: Notes Of A Native Daughter, Lynnell L. Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

“Best Culinary Destination.” “Best City for Night Owls.” “Best NFL City to Party In.“ “Best City for Girlfriend Getaways.” “Top National Halloween Destination.” “Best Destination in the US and World for Nightlife.” “America's Favorite City.” And on. And on. The list of tourist destination rankings and accolades have mounted in the 10 years since Hurricane Katrina threatened to decimate New Orleans's tourism industry and, quite possibly—as some predicted and others hoped for—New Orleans itself. Things are different now. Recently, the New York Times proclaimed that New Orleans was “resilient and renewed, a decade after Katrina.” Listing New Orleans as one …


New Orleans Unveiled: Fanon And A Reconceptualization Of The Performative, Lynnell Thomas Mar 2012

New Orleans Unveiled: Fanon And A Reconceptualization Of The Performative, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article examines Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled" as a reconceptualization of J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Austin, whose examples of the performative all assume an equal, if not harmonious, relationship, overlooks instances of incompatibility and inequality. Fanon's post-colonial framework, in contrast, illustrates the markedly different types of intentions, uptake, and conventions which inform the speech act in cases of extreme inequality. In these cases, the powerless and seemingly voiceless use tacitly agreed upon conventions inappropriately to attain what they would not be able to have otherwise. Fanon's notion of the performative is used to explore the performative resistance …


“'Roots Run Deep Here': The Construction Of Black New Orleans In Post-Katrina Tourism Narratives", Lynnell L. Thomas Aug 2009

“'Roots Run Deep Here': The Construction Of Black New Orleans In Post-Katrina Tourism Narratives", Lynnell L. Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article explores the emergent post-Katrina tourism narrative and its ambivalent racialization of the city. Tourism officials are compelled to acknowledge a New Orleans outside the traditional tourist boundaries – primarily black, often poor, and still largely neglected by the city and national governments. On the other hand, tourism promoters do not relinquish (and do not allow tourists to relinquish) the myths of racial exoticism and white supremacist desire for a construction of blacks as artistically talented but socially inferior.


“‘The City I Used To...Visit’: Tourist New Orleans And The Racialized Response To Hurricane Katrina”, Lynnell Thomas Dec 2006

“‘The City I Used To...Visit’: Tourist New Orleans And The Racialized Response To Hurricane Katrina”, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article explores the connections between New Orleans’s late 20th-century tourism representations and the mainstream media coverage and national images of the city immediately following Hurricane Katrina. It pays particular attention to the ways that race and class are employed in both instances to create and perpetuate a distorted sense of place that ignore the historical and contemporary realities of the city’s African American population.