Our Work

Currents

Read. Discuss. Engage.

Currents is a turnkey book club program developed and funded by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH). The program offers libraries and other community-based nonprofits the tools they need to host themed reading and discussion programs centered on timely humanities topics. 

Currents host sites receive: 

  • An LEH programming grant to cover site coordination, facilitator honoraria, book purchases, and program publicity 
  • Reading and discussion guides developed by the LEH and humanities scholars 
  • Scholar-facilitator training that encourages thoughtful dialogue  
  • Customizable publicity kits for print and digital program promotion 
  • Audience evaluation tools 

Applications to host a Currents program will open this fall. Check back for updates. 

Currents Series

Who Gets to Vote? Conversations on Voting Rights in America fosters conversations about the history of voting—and efforts to suppress the vote—in the United States. The series is part of the special NEH initiative, “A More Perfect Union,” which is designed to demonstrate and enhance the critical role the humanities play in our nation and support projects that help Americans commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. 

Themes include: 

  • the expansion of voting rights since the country’s founding 
  • the electoral process 
  • the women’s suffrage movement 
  • historic and contemporary voter suppression practices 
  • the Voting Rights Act of 1965 
  • the 2013 Supreme Court decision that invalidated key portions of the Voting Rights Act 
  • the disenfranchisement of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Americans 

St Charles Parish Library, East Regional Branch 

June 23–September 22, 2022 

160 West Campus Drive 

Destrehan, LA 70047 

Register at http://myscpl.evanced.info/signup/ or email Maria Bilello at maria.bilello@myscpl.org. 

 

Terrebonne Parish Library, Main Library 

August 15–September 26, 2022 

4130 West Park Avenue 

Gray, LA 70359 

Email or call Jessica Mouton at jmouton@mytpl.org or 985-876-5861 to register. 

 

University of Louisiana at Monroe Library 

July 12–October 11, 2022 

700 University Avenue  

Monroe, LA 71209 

Email Meredith McKinnie at mckinnie@ulm.edu to register. 

 

Southern University Museum of Art Shreveport 

June 27–September 26, 2022 

610 Texas Street, Ste. 110  

Shreveport, LA  71101 

Email Angelique Feaster at afeaster@susla.edu to register.  

 

Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association and Lower Ninth Ward Voter’s Coalition 

June 14–September 13, 2022 

1123 Lamanche Street 

New Orleans, LA 70117 

Email l9voters@gmail.com or call Lou Anne White at 504-605-4055 to register. 

Witness to Change: Conversations on Coastal Impacts incorporates history, memoir, and fiction and engages members of the general public in conversations on the beauty of and challenges faced by coastal communities.  

 Themes include:  

  • what makes a place a home 
  • experiences of flooding 
  • hurricanes 
  • family roots and connection to place 
  • land loss and dislocation 
  • scarcity and adaptation 
  • risk and relocation

Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast, by Mike Tidwell (Vintage Books, 2010)

Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury, 2011)

The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (Penguin Random House, 2015)

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, by Elizabeth Rush (Milkweed Editions, 2018)

Check back at a later date for the next Witness to Change program schedule.