DEPARTMENT OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Dr. Sudipta Das

Chair

Park Campus

Multipurpose 236

(504) 286-5154 Main

Arts and Humanities is a newly structured department.  It emerged in early Spring 2006 during the post-Katrina era of institutional reorganization.  The department houses academic programs, some of which have their pre-Katrina baccalaureate degree granting status currently terminated.  The areas of History and English have their baccalaureate degree granting status re-created from Fall 2008.

The present curricula housed under the department of Arts and Humanities include English, Fine Arts, Geography, History, African-American Studies, Philosophy, Music, Spanish and Communication.  Under the post-Katrina modifications, these disciplines, with the exception of History and English, function as service programs fulfilling general academic requirements for majors of other degree-granting departments. 

English, Fine Arts, History, African-American Studies, and Print Journalism are also approved as concentration areas in the General Studies degree program.  Students electing concentration in any of these areas will take thirty (30) credit hours or ten courses in the concentration area which will include a mix of basic and 300 and 400 upper-level courses.  The department of Arts & Humanities has been developing online courses in several of its disciplines, including History, Fine Arts, English, Humanities, and Print Journalism for accommodating distance-learning and the needs of storm-displaced, out-of-state students.

The department of Arts and Humanities, along with the department of Social Sciences, is currently working toward resuscitating the national and international Race, Gender, and Class Conference from 2011.  The two departments are also excited to engender in the near future an activity entitled, “Undergraduate Research Day” on SUNO campus, and sponsor the creation of an Undergraduate Research Journal as a refereed publication.

About Dr. Das

Dr. Das is a Full Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences at Southern University at New Orleans.  She obtained her bachelor’s degree from Calcutta University in India with a honors in History.  Her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees were received from Tulane University in New Orleans where she graduated top of her class in both categories winning the prestigious Seeley Dissertation Fellowship to conduct her research in French history in Paris, France.  Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of Eighteenth Century France, Modern Europe, United States, World Cultures, South Asia, Asian Americans in the United States, and Eastern Spiritualism. 

Dr. Das has published two scholarly books on French history.  Her first monograph won special recognition from the Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Committee of the French Historical Society, and was displayed at the Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the prominent book fairs on scholarly publications. Dr. Das has published several articles in the European History Quarterly, Journal of Modern History, Journal of Urban History, Race, Gender, and Class and Africana Studies Review on European, Asian-American, and South Asian history.  She iscurrently working on an article on cultural history for the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.  Dr. Das received the SUNO Faculty Excellence Award in 2005, the SUNO Scholarship Award in 2007, and the SUNO Educator Award in 2008.