Tulane University

From Steve Striffler, Latin American Studies and Anthropology, University of New Orleans:
In response to President Zelaya‘€™s return to Honduras yesterday, the de facto government of Honduras has implemented a curfew and the airport is closed. As a result, Dario Euraque, one of our two invited speakers, will not be able to leave Honduras in order to attend our event, Honduras Meets Nola. Because events are rapidly evolving in Honduras, and because our own event revolved around a panel discussion in which Professor Euraque‘€™s presence was central, we have been forced to postpone Honduras Meets NOLA to a later date.

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art/University of New Orleans and the UNO Latin American Studies program will present Honduras Meets Nola, a celebration of the artistic and cultural contributions of the local Honduran community, on Wednesday, September 23 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Ogden Museum, 925 Camp Street. The event is free.

Honduras Meets Nola will kick off with a reception featuring art and music by a string quartet led by Honduran-born violinist Henry Aragon, founder and music director of Chamber Music Enterprise. A panel discussion on current events in Honduras will follow. There will be a cash bar.

The event is presented by the Ogden Museum and UNO in collaboration with the Loyola University‘€™s Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University‘€™s Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the World Affairs Council of New Orleans.

“Honduras Meets Nola offers us an opportunity to recognize the cultural and artistic contributions of our Honduran community to New Orleans while providing a forum to discuss an important event in Latin American history, the coup in Honduras this past summer,” said Steve Striffler, the Doris Zemurray Stone Chair in Latin American Studies and professor of anthropology at UNO.

Participants in the panel will include Oscar Avila, a leader in the local Honduran and Latin American communities, and Dario A. Euraque, director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History and professor of history and international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Avila, a native of Honduras who has lived in the New Orleans area since 1983, has served as president and vice president of the Unified Honduran Association of Louisiana and as vice president of Hispanidad, a leader in the local relief effort following Hurricane Mitch. He is currently working to register local Hondurans for the November elections in Honduras.

Euraque, who moved to New Orleans with his family in 1968, has served as a consultant to the Honduran government, several United Nations projects in Honduras and UNESCO. A graduate of Jesuit High School, he has doctoral and masters‘€™ degrees from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor‘€™s from Marquette University. His books include the path-breaking ‘€œReinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972‘€ (1996) and ‘€œHistoriografia de Honduras‘€ (2009).

The University of New Orleans (UNO), the urban research University of the State of Louisiana, provides essential support for the educational, economic, cultural and social well-being of the culturally rich and diverse New Orleans metropolitan area. It opened its doors in 1958 as part of the Louisiana State University System “to bring public-supported higher education to Louisiana’s largest urban community.” Today, UNO offers 43 undergraduate degree programs, 37 masters, and 11 doctoral programs. The 340-acre main campus sits on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, offering easy access to all parts of the metro area. For more, visit www.uno.edu.

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art/University of New Orleans is home to the largest and most comprehensive collection of Southern art in the world, and includes the Center for Southern Craft and Design. Here you will find the story of the South – the old as well as the new, as told through its art, music and education programs. The museum includes Stephen Goldring Hall, which opened in 2003, and two buildings under construction and renovation: the Clementine Hunter Education Wing and the Patrick F. Taylor Library, designed by American 19th century architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Among the many artists represented in the museum‘€™s collection are Benny Andrews, William Dunlap, Ida Kohlmeyer, Will Henry Stevens, Hunt Slonem and George Ohr.

Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday evenings for Ogden After Hours. For more information, call (504) 529-9600 or visit www.ogdenmuseum.org.

See the Event Flyer