Announcing the 2023 Humanities Awards Winners
Chef John Folse—culinary professional, food historian, tv personality, restauranteur, and Louisiana culture bearer—has been named the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’ 2023 Humanist of the Year. In addition to the Humanist of the Year award, the LEH has announced eight Humanities Awards recipients, recognizing documentary filmmakers and photographers, literacy and language advocates, historians and more:
- Chair’s Award for Institutional Support: Patrick F. Taylor Foundation
- Champion of Culture: Senator Gerald Boudreaux
- Documentary Photographer of the Year: Jenny Ellerbe
- Humanities Book of the Year: Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom by Kathryn Olivarius
- Humanities Documentary Film of the Year: Roots of Fire, directed and produced by Abby Berendt Lavoi and Jeremey Lavoi
- Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities: Marianne Fisher-Giorlando
- Best in Digital Humanities: Freedom on the Move
- Light Up for Literacy: Megan Holt, executive director of One Book, One New Orleans
Click here to learn more about this year’s winners.
Now in their 38th year, the LEH Humanities Awards offer a collective opportunity to celebrate all the humanities have to offer and honor those who have made significant contributions to the understanding of Louisiana’s history and culture.
The awardees will be highlighted in the summer issue of 64 Parishes magazine, published by the LEH, and they will be recognized during the organization’s annual Bright Lights Awards ceremony, returning in-person for the first time in three years on May 11, 2023. Full ticket and program details will be available online at leh.org once available.