NEWS

Speakers to look at Louisiana’s changing environment

Nov 5, 2012 | General News, Liberal Arts

According to historian Carl A. Brasseaux and cultural geographer Donald Davis, important parts of Louisiana’s natural and human environment have become extinct or are on the road to extinction.
“Disappearing Before Our Eyes” will be the topic when Brasseaux and Davis deliver the closing presentations in Louisiana Tech University’s “Louisiana@200: A Bicentennial Lecture Series.”  The series commemorates the 200th anniversary of Louisiana statehood.
Brasseaux and Davis will make two separate presentations:
• 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8 in the Lincoln Room at the Lincoln Parish Library; and
• 10:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 9 in University Hall, Room 134 on the Louisiana Tech campus in Ruston.
Both events are free and open to the public.
Brasseaux and Davis are collaborating on an environmental history of Louisiana’s changing landscape.
In illustrated presentations featuring hundreds of rare images, the speakers will emphasize the occupation and development of the state’s coastal wetlands, the emergence of unique regional cultures, and the threats posed to a special way of life by such disastrous events as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, the BP oil spill, and the flood of 2011.
An internationally recognized specialist on Louisiana history and culture, Brasseaux is professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  He holds a doctorate from the University of Paris, France, and has served as managing editor of the scholarly journal “Louisiana History,” as well as director of the Center for Louisiana Studies and the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism.  Brasseaux is the author or editor of more than 30 books and more than 100 articles and contributions to edited volumes.
Davis is director emeritus of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program.  He holds a Ph.D. in cultural geography from Louisiana State University and has authored more than 100 publications. Davis previously served as manager of Louisiana’s Oil Spill Research and Development Program.
Sponsors of the “Louisiana@200” series at Louisiana Tech are the College of Liberal Arts, the department of history, the department of social sciences, the School of Literature and Language, the department of journalism, and Phi Alpha Theta and Phi Alpha Delta national honor societies.