In this episode of This is Centenary, we drop in on the monthly Colloquium sponsored by the Department of English. In November 2019, the department invited Jim Warren, founding artistic director of the American Shakespeare Center and guest director for the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse production of The Tempest, to lead a conversation about the play.

This episode of This is Centenary features a conversation between Dr. Jefferson Hendricks and Dr. Emily Leithauser, from Centenary's English Department, and award-winning poet and Shreveport native Jericho Brown. In the second half of the episode, Brown reads some of his poetry during the Corrington Award ceremony held at Centenary on October 7.

This episode of This is Centenary reaches back into the archives to a 2009 campus visit by journalist and author Doug Fine, whose accounts of high-adventure travel and living off the grid gained wide acclaim. His most recent books explore the production of cannabis and hemp for commentary on the future of both farming and drug policy. During his Centenary visit, Fine talked about his 2009 book Farewell, My Subaru, which documented his quest to live a sustainable life on his Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico alongside a pack of mischievous goats.

In this episode of This is Centenary, we hear from Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of the namesakes of the famous 1896 Supreme Court case that established the doctrine of separate-but-equal and allowed legal protection for economic and social discrimination against African-Americans. Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson are also co-founders of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation, an organization dedicated to teaching the history of the Plessy v. Ferguson case and highlighting its continued relevance in today’s world. Plessy and Ferguson visited Centenary in February 2017 and had the opportunity to interact with students, faculty, staff, and community members.

This episode of This is Centenary takes us back to the inaugural English Department Colloquium of the 2018-2019 academic year, when English professors David Havird, Jeff Hendricks, and Jeanne Hamming shared stories of Centenary graduates who have translated their liberal arts education into personally and professionally meaningful lives. The English Department Colloquium is an eclectic lunchtime presentation series held the first Wednesday of every month in the Centenary Room in Bynum Commons. This edition, entitled “Storytelling and the Meaningful Life,” was recorded on September 12, 2018.

In this episode of This is Centenary, Nicolas Torres, Attaché of Cooperation for French at the Consulate General of France in New Orleans, delivers a bi-lingual presentation on Francophone language and culture in Louisiana with the assistance of Dr. Andia Augustin-Billy, assistant professor of French and Francophone Studies at Centenary. Entitled, “Louisiana: The Rising Star of the Francophone World,” the presentation highlighted Louisiana’s efforts to preserve and promote French language and culture and the state’s recent election to the Organisation international de la Francophonie as an observer member. Torres delivered the lecture during a November 2018 visit to Centenary and Shreveport, during which he also opened the Centenary Film Society’s annual French Film Week at downtown Shreveport’s Robinson Film Center.

In this episode of This is Centenary, artist Joan Hall discusses her exhibit Global Contamination: A Gulf Project, which was presented at the College’s Meadows Museum of Art from January through March, 2019. Hall’s work reflects her passion for ocean environments and uses information on climate change and scientific data as “points of departure” for creative exploration. Hall delivered the lecture on January 17, 2019, at the Meadows Museum.

In this episode of This is Centenary, provost and dean of the College, Dr. Jenifer K. Ward, sits down for a conversation with several Centenary faculty members who are completing their first year at the College. We hope you enjoy hearing about what drew them to Centenary and how their students have surprised them this year, as well as learn to recognize them by their “catchphrases.” This episode has a companion piece in the spring edition of Centenary Magazine, which can be found online at centenary.edu/magazine.

In this episode of This is Centenary, we reach back into the archives to hear the voice of a beloved friend of the College, Rose Van Thyn. Rose and her husband Louis were both survivors of the Holocaust who emigrated to Shreveport from their native Holland in 1956. Rose spent more than 30 years speaking and writing about the Holocaust in order to educate people about its horrors and to ensure that they were never repeated. This episode was originally recorded on January 29, 2009.

In this episode of This is Centenary, 1979 Centenary graduate Elaine McArdle discusses and reads from her critically-acclaimed book, The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, co-authored with neuroscientist Barbara Lipska. The book traces Lipska’s poignant journey after she developed symptoms of dementia and schizophrenia – similar to the conditions she studies in others – but discovered that her behaviors were related to nearly 20 cancerous tumors growing in her brain.

This episode was recorded on November 6, 2018, during a 2018 Homecoming Week event at Centenary’s Meadows Museum of Art.