By Sheila Lockwood
Sarah Hirsch was born and raised in California, but the UC Santa Barbara faculty member developed an unshakeable love for a city over 2,000 miles away when she first visited while conducting research.
While writing her doctoral dissertation in UCSB’s English department on seaports and literature of the sea, Hirsch discovered a passion for New Orleans, a city that has remained so persistent in her life that she needed to bring that love and fascination for it back to Santa Barbara.
Sarah Hirsch, Continuing Lecturer in UCSB’s Writing Program, has been teaching the course “The Cross-Cultural Mapping of New Orleans” for 10 years. She teaches composition and journalism and continues research projects in New Orleans.
She has since become a Continuing Lecturer in UCSB’s Writing Program and has taught a variety of courses, from composition to journalism. But her pride and joy is still the primary subject of her research and she teaches a course each year devoted to it, called “The Cross-Cultural Mapping of New Orleans.”
Hirsch was also awarded the 2021 Charles Bazerman Faculty Fellowship to pursue her research into the visual rhetoric of the Katrina Cross, a large spray-painted “X” that FEMA search and rescue teams would place on properties affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Her findings highlighted the vulnerabilities of certain communities within New Orleans due to climate change.
Hirsch’s New Orleans course offers students an opportunity to research aspects of the city that resonate with them the most, choosing their assignment topic according to what aspects of New Orleans interest them. Some students have conducted research on architecture, food, Mardi Gras, tourism, and climate change — just to name a few. Others, like one of Hirsch’s engineering students, did STEM-informed research on the levee system in the city and how it has impacted the lives of residents over the years.
Hirsch’s class is offered by the Writing Program for one quarter each year, typically in the fall term. She recently sat down for an interview to discuss the course.
Q: UCSB is very far removed from New Orleans and Louisiana in general, why did you feel it was important to have this class here?
A: There’s some connection between Santa Barbara and Louisiana… I’ve met so many people here in and around town who are either from Louisiana or went to LSU [Louisiana State University]. One reason that I chose it is that you can explore the region and the city from so many different aspects that dial into the communities. History, literature, sociology, engineering — there are just so many different places that you can go. Students can take their major and expertise or what they're interested in and apply it to New Orleans in some way.
The Cross-Cultural Mapping of New Orleans gives students a parameter but the way they approach it with what they want to explore can cater to their expertise and interests.
Q: You did your dissertation on seaports. What specifically about the port in New Orleans really stuck out to you?
A: Usually your research, or the work that you're interested, comes somewhat out of the dissertation. But it's not the dissertation in general, partly because you just want to like get away from that whole project. But there's something that sparks more interest in you, or something you want to explore further, and the fact that the New Orleans chapter was the longest chapter in my dissertation —like almost 70 pages— you know, that was clear to me that it was the space that I wanted to focus on and where I wanted to locate my research.
UCSB Continuing Lecturer Sarah Hirsch, left, and New Orleans resident Laura Paul walk on the levee in the Ninth Ward. Paul is part of Lower Nine, a non-profit organization founded after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to help the historic neighborhood recover.
Q: What made you want to have an entire class on New Orleans versus just continuing your own research?
A: Well, I think one thing that’s great about it is that it dovetails with my research so my teaching and my research complement each other. That’s a really fulfilling type of thing. So, any type of research trips that I take to New Orleans, I can then incorporate new material into the class. They each are beneficial to each other. The last time I went was 2021 but I used to go every year to Baton Rouge.
Q: What are the main components of the class?
A: The course has two components. One is giving background, like historical and cultural information, and the other is research-based methodologies for the humanities. We do an annotated bibliography where the students go to the library and get accustomed to the library and to doing scholarly research. After that, they do a creative piece called the cross-cultural mapping project where they take a space that’s associated with their project. So, for example, say they’re doing something on Cajun culture and Cajun food and how that connects to the surrounding landscape… Some people do PowerPoint slides, some do pamphlets. I’ve had people do paintings, Zulu coconuts, and all these things and they write a paper that corresponds.
Q: What are the main takeaways that you want students to gain from this course?
A: One of the things is that I want, is for them to be curious to go [to New Orleans]. I have talked to students in the past who had not thought about going and then end up going after taking the class, and really getting more out of that trip than they initially would have. I also feel like I have students who go down there and have a different appreciation for it so they’re more like ambassadors and not just tourists. What I want them to get is not only the love for the place and the appreciation of it, but also to provoke their curiosity and scholarship and critical thinking and inquiry into things that they're interested in. And feeling confident about doing research in the future and knowing how to approach it.
Sheila Lockwood is a fourth-year UCSB student majoring in political science. She wrote this article for her Digital Journalism course.