LSU Experts Available to Speak on Mardi Gras History and Traditions

Mardi Gras Mike BATON ROUGE – LSU faculty experts are available for media interviews about the Mardi Gras history and traditions.

To schedule interviews contact Ernie Ballard 225-578-5685 eballa1@lsu.edu / Abbi Rocha Laymoun abbirocha@lsu.edu 817-938-6102 / or Alison Satake asatake@lsu.edu 510-816-8161.

Check back here as this list will be updated.

LSU researchers available to speak on Mardi Gras include:

Mark Benfield, professor, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences
Contact: 225-578-6372 / mbenfie@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: How Mardi Gras beads can become microplasticsthat end up in the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico

Joyce Marie Jackson, professor of folklore-ethnomusicology, Department of Geography & Anthropology chair and the James J. Parsons Endowed Professor
Contact: 225-578-5942 / jjackso@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Mardi Gras Indians and other black masking traditions; carnivalesque street theater and resistance; transforming identities and public space; diasporic (Haiti and Trinidad) relationships.

Naohiro Kato, associate professor, biological sciences
Contact: 225-578-2004 / kato@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Traffic control of molecules such as proteins and lipids in plant cells; developing biodegradable Mardi Gras beadsand doubloons from algae

Alecia P. Long, associate professor, Department of History
Contact: 225-578-4458 / aplong@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: 19th and 20th century social and cultural history of the United States, especially Louisiana and New Orleans

Michael Pasquier, associate professor, Departments of Religious Studies and History
Contact: 225-578-2271 / mpasquier@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Roman Catholicism in the South, Roman Catholic traditions surrounding Mardi Gras and into Lent

Helen Regis, associate professor, Department of Geography & Anthropology
Contact: 225-578-6171 / hregis1@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Mardi Gras marching groups, innovation and tradition, alternative parades, New Orleans, gender, neighborhoods, race/racism, public space

Wes Shrum, professor, sociology
Contact: 225-578-5319 / shrum@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Ritual disrobement at Mardi Gras, nudity, new traditions

Dek Terrell, LSU Economics & Policy Research Group executive director and LSU Department of Economics professor
Contact: mdterre@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Economic benefits of tourism and Mardi Gras, labor economics, public finance and applied environmental related studies

David Terry, associate professor, Department of Communication Studies
Contact: 225-578-6838 / davidterry@gmail.com
Areas of expertise: Cultural performance, performance ethnography, oral history, new media, performance art, environmental performance, modern Greek studies, non-visible disability.

Carolyn Ware, associate professor, Department of English
Contact: 225-578-3022 / cware1@lsu.edu
Areas of expertise: Rural Cajun Mardi Gras celebrations, coastal folk culture (especially Plaquemines Parish), Louisiana Croatian folklife, human-animal relationships and veterinary culture

LSU Libraries Special Collections: The LSU Libraries have a number of collections related to Mardi Gras history and traditions:
Selection of articles covering this topic in the digitized Louisiana newspapers
LSU Libraries Mardi Gras Collection

For more information, contact LSU Libraries Special Collections at 225-578-6544 or special@lsu.edu.

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