On September 17th, the Louisiana State University PhD program in Comparative Literature hosted the second 2010 local meeting of the ALSCW in Baton Rouge, at the LSU Rural Life Museum’s Windrush Gardens. The event celebrated the collaboration between the ALSCW and LSU’s Comparative Literature program, a partnership was instrumental in preventing the program’s possible elimination as a result of economic misfortune throughout the state of Louisiana.
Faye Phillips, Associate Dean of the LSU libraries, presented her new book The LSU Rural Life Museum & Windrush Gardens: A Living History, in which she discusses the history of three memebers of the Baton Rouge and LSu community. Raymond Eustis Jr., the newest LSU PhD in Comparative Literature, presented a paper entitled “Garden and Wilderness: Revisting Theoreau’s Beanfield” offering both a close reading of Theoreau’s Walden and an ecological statement about the balance between man and nature. LSU Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope offered a reflection on the relationship of landscapes and expression in “Gentle Winds and Rushing Streams: the first Landscape Gardens”. Finally, The Southern Review‘s Nolde Alexius and Judy Kahn presented Best of LSU Fiction, an anthology of fiction from the LSU community.