Home › Academics › College of Liberal Arts › Faculty › Lynnell Thomas

Faculty & Staff

Areas of Expertise

African American Studies, American Literature and Culture, New Orleans Culture and History

Degrees

PhD Emory University

Professional Publications & Contributions

• “‘Roots Run Deep Here’: The Construction of Black New Orleans in Post-Katrina Tourism Narratives,” American Quarterly 61.3 (September 2009): 749-768. Reprint. In In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina: New Paradigms and Social Visions. Ed. Clyde Woods. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2010. 323-342.
• “‘The City I Used to...Visit’: Tourist New Orleans and the Racialized Response to Hurricane Katrina.” In Seeking Higher Ground: The Race, Public Policy, and Hurricane Katrina Reader. Ed. Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 255-270.
• “Kissing Ass and Other Performative Acts of Resistance: Austin, Fanon, and New Orleans Tourism.” Performance Research 12.3 (September 2007): 137-145.

Additional Information

Research Interests:

Lynnell Thomas' research interests include New Orleans tourism, African American history and culture, and Black popular culture. A native of New Orleans, Lynnell Thomas is part of the post-Katrina diaspora, which informs her teaching and scholarship.  Her research is also concerned with the diverse backgrounds and experiences that constitute and contest American identity and values.  Her most recent scholarship has examined the distortion of African American history and culture in New Orleans’ tourism narrative, the negative impact of this narrative on policy decisions following Hurricane Katrina, and the ways that African Americans and others have attempted to resist and revise this narrative.

Work in Progress:

Desire and Disaster: Race, Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Tourism (under contract with Duke University Press).

Selected Media Outreach:

“Tremé: Feels Like Joy and Pain,” Antenna: Responses to Media and Culture, June 1, 2011, View the publication
Guest Panelist, Basic Black television series, WGBH Boston, April 22, 2011, View the publication
Contributing Photographer, “Katrina + 5: An X-Code Exhibition,” Curated by Dorothy Moye, Southern Spaces, August 26, 2010, View the publication
Discussant, “HBO’s Tremé,” “The Callie Crossley Show,” WGBH Boston Public Radio, April 28, 2010, View the publication
“Slave Trade in New Orleans was a Thriving Business,” by John Pope, The Times-Picayune, April 13, 2010, View the publication

Courses Taught:

AMST G110 US Society and Culture Since 1945
AMST 206 The US in the 1960s
AMST 211 US Society and Culture 1860-1940
Honors 290 Black New Orleans
AMST/AFSTY 355L Black Popular Culture, American Studies/Africana Studies
AMST 603 Historical Sequence 1870-1940
AMST 605 Ethnicity, Race, and Nationality