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| Tulane School of Liberal Arts NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2016 |
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NEWS | EVENTS | GIVING | PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES | ACCOLADES |
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HONORING THE PAST WHILE CELEBRATING THE FUTURE
Spirit of Renewal in Africana Studies
The Africana Studies Program in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane has a new name, a new home, and a renewed focus both on internationalism and black experience in the United States. Academic leaders are hopeful that the new name will increase the program's visibility and educate more members of the Tulane community about the program's important work.
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Message from the Dean
News from the Field:
Rare Book of Shakespeare's Plays on Exhibit
Shakespeare's Othello & Racial Identity: Felipe Smith
Shakespeare Festival Announces 49th Season
Upcoming Events Celebrating Black History Month |
As Travis Torrence, Tulane College '02, departed for his first day of classes as a freshman, his parents reminded him that they were sending him to college to make a better life for himself. While participating in service learning courses at Tulane, the Communication and Political Science double-major was introduced to the old adage: "You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give." 
Newly hired Tulane political science professor Ashley Brown Burns is experienced in bringing contemporary social and political issues into the liberal arts classroom in a way that offers her students real-world policy lessons. "That's the local excitement of public policy in a Tulane political science classroom – the real-time opportunity to make New Orleans a better place," says Burns. 
As February is Black History Month, it seems most fitting for this month's newsletter to highlight some of the activities, faculty, alumni, and students who reflect the School of Liberal Art's dedication to providing an academic environment that values, teaches, and learns from the diverse experiences of people in the city, the nation, and across the globe.
Most of my work as an academic consists of sitting alone in a room reading and writing about men and women who sat alone in rooms reading and writing. It does not exactly lead itself to exciting narrative, but it is not without its moments of drama. I am currently writing a book about mystic language in Spain between 1500-1700. 
One of the most frequently produced Shakespearean dramas in America, Othello inspired a history reflective of societal struggles to assert citizens' rights in the face of racism and legalized slavery. In 1833, the British actor Edmund Kean, responding to Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's outrage over Desdemona "falling in love with a veritable negro," "de-Africanized" the Moor. 
