Approached as a wellspring of cultural authenticity and historical exceptionality, New Orleans appears in opposition to a nation perpetually driven by progress. Remaking New Orleans shows how this narrative is rooted in a romantic cultural tradition, continuously repackaged through the twin engines of tourism and economic development, and supported by research that has isolated the city from comparison and left unquestioned its entrenched inequality. Working against this feedback loop, the contributors place New Orleans at the forefront of national patterns of urban planning, place-branding, structural inequality, and racialization. Nontraditional sites like professional wrestling matches, middle-class black suburbs, and Vietnamese gardens take precedence over clichéd renderings of Creole cuisine, voodoo queens, and hot jazz. Covering the city's founding through its present and highlighting changing political and social formations, this volume remakes New Orleans as a rich site for understanding the quintessential concerns of American cities.
Contributors. Thomas Jessen Adams, Vincanne Adams, Vern Baxter, Maria Celeste Casati Allegretti, Shannon Lee Dawdy, Rien Fertel, Megan French-Marcelin, Cedric G. Johnson, Alecia P. Long, Vicki Mayer, Toby Miller, Sue Mobley, Marguerite Nguyen, Aaron Nyerges, Adolph Reed Jr., Helen A. Regis, Matt Sakakeeny, Heidi Schmalbach, Felipe Smith, Bryan Wagner
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: What Lies beyond Histories of Exceptionalism and Cultures of Authenticity
- Part One. Constructing Exceptional New Orleans
- 1. La Catrina: The Mexican Specter of New Orleans
- 2. Charles Gayarré and the Imagining of an Exceptional City: The Literary Roots of the Creole City
- 3. Phony City: Under the Skin of Authenticity
- Part Two. Producing Authentic New Orleans
- 4. “Things You’d Imagine Zulu Tribes to Do”: The Zulu Parade in New Orleans Carnival
- 5. The Saga of the Junkyard Dog
- 6. Local, Native, Creole, Black: Claiming Belonging, Producing Autochthony
- 7. The Contradictions of the Film Welfare Economy, or, For the Love of Treme
- Part Three. What Is New Orleans Identity?
- 8. “Queers, Fairies, and Ne’er-Do-Wells”: Rethinking the Notion of a Sexually Liberal New Orleans
- 9. Building Black Suburbs in New Orleans
- 10. Refugee Pastoralism: Vietnamese American Self-Representation in New Orleans
- Part Four. Predictive City?
- 11. Boosting the Private Sector: Federal Aid and Downtown Development in the 1970s
- 12. What’s Left for New Orleans? The People’s Reconstruction and the Limits of Anarcho-Liberalism
- 13. Neoliberal Futures: Post-Katrina New Orleans, Volunteers, and the Ongoing Allure of Exceptionalism
- 14. The Myth of Authenticity and Its Impact on Politics—in New Orleans and Beyond
- References
- Contributors
- Index
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