Allison Miner Lecture Series
The Allison Miner Series is an initiative of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Archive to highlight research, scholarship, and projects that utilize the historic collection.
Allison Miner was a dedicated advocate for New Orleans music and culture, known for her significant contributions to the preservation and promotion of the city’s musical heritage. She played a key role in the establishment and development of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and its Archive. Her passion and commitment to supporting local musicians and cultural traditions have left a lasting impact on the community. The Allison Miner Lecture Series was created to underscore the work of recipients of the Jazz & Heritage Fellowship Research Grants.
Lecture #4 Monday, April 28, 2025
Mapping Joy and Belonging at Jazz Fest
What map would you draw to express your experience of the festival? Hand-drawn maps can express people’s experience, their rituals, traditions, and their favorites stages, foods, artists, music, and places to find shade or a respite in the middle of the day. This talk builds on maps created at Jazz Fest as an entry point for thinking about festival landscapes and the different ways people participate in public space. Talking
about maps is also a way to think about the place festival in our lives and in the city. In this talk, maps lead us to the anthropology of happiness and how people find joy in times of trouble. We’ll consider a variety of maps created by festgoers. Your map might reveal a great deal about who you are, what you love, and how you belong to the city and its festival communities.
This presentation is led by Helen Regis, a cultural anthropologist at Louisiana State University. She has studied public health in Cameroon (West Africa), faith-based initiatives in Mississippi, collective memory in Marseille (France) and how harvesting and sharing food builds community in coastal Louisiana. She has been researching parades, public space, and the public cultures of New Orleans for over three decades. Her talk draws from a collaborative partnership with the Jazz & Heritage Archive to document communities, traditions, and livelihoods created through the festival. Her latest publication (with Shana Walton) is Bayou Harvest: Subsistence Practice in Coastal Louisiana.
Lecture #3: November 6, 2024
Dancing the Politics of Pleasure at the New Orleans Second Line
When second liners dance, they are usually doing more than showing off fancy footwork. They might be building community, catching the spirit, fighting for freedom, or claiming home. Such is the point of view forwarded by Rachel Carrico’s new book, Dancing the Politics of Pleasure at the New Orleans Second Line, which was supported by a Jazz & Heritage Fellowship in 2017. To celebrate the book and the people’s lives it documents, Carrico will share stories and reflections, including a tribute to Joe Stern and Barbara Lacen Keller. Two SAPC presidents will join her for an audience discussion before a band ushers the community into the courtyard for book signing, drinks, and of course, dancing. Pre-Pay or pick up your book early from Frenchmen Art & Books!
Lecture #2: May 1, 2024
These Drums of Ours: Experiencing Cultural Heritage in two festivals (New Orleans and Cali, Colombia): Manuel Sevilla is a Colombian anthropologist who received a Jazz & Heritage Archive Fellowship in 2015. Sevilla’s exploration of the Petronio Alvarez Festival in Cali, Colombia, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival sheds light on the rich tapestry of Cultural Heritage across countries and cultures. By examining the parallel experiences of attendees and participants, Sevilla uncovers how these festivals foster the experience of Cultural Heritage through a combination of cognitive processes. The fusion of these processes creates a unique axis through which Cultural Heritage is both experienced and transmitted.
Lecture #1: September 20, 2023
Reel to Real: The Early Airwaves of WWOZ: WWOZ’s appearance on the radio dial in December of 1980 was nothing short of miraculous. Learn about the struggle to secure the FCC license for the now lauded 90.7FM to how a handful of volunteers worked to overcome organizational and technological challenges. ‘Reel to Real: The early airwaves of WWOZ’ is an engaging presentation about those efforts and features the voices of some of WWOZ’s original radio hosts, diehard supporters and the resourceful technicians who had made WWOZ a reality. Presented by radio host and producer, George Ingmire. Watch below: