Jeffery U. Darensbourg, Ph.D.
Viewing a 1735 drawing by Alexandre DeBatz on a research trip to the Harvard Art Museums.
Right Now: Writer, speaker, artist.
United States Artists Fellow for 2024.
Fiscally sponsored artist, A Studio in the Woods.
Consultant on matters pertaining to Indigenous Nations of Louisiana and other diversity-related topics.
Experienced grants juror.
Licensed Tour Guide in Orleans Parish, Louisiana.
Invite-only actor for film and stage.
Fellow of the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for the 2020-2025 term.
Tribal Councilperson, Atakapa-Ishak Nation of Southwest Louisiana.
Member of the Board, Ashé Cultural Arts Center.
Member, New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Fund Cultural Working Group.
Member of the Board, The Chess Cave & Red Beret Chess Foundation.
Member of the B Corp Advisory Board, One More Thing, LLC.
Selected Writings (links provided when available):
John DePriest and Jeffery U. Darensbourg, “The Music of the Rivercane,” Country Roads Magazine, 41(6):35-38.
“Bulbancha.” 64 Parishes Encyclopedia, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2024.
“A Note on Changing a Word,” “A Studio in the Woods,” and “Some Zydeco Lyrics” in David V. Kaufman, Atakapa Ishākkoy Dictionary, 2nd edition (Chicago: Exploration Press, 2022).
Nementou, a play in four acts produced by MB Presents, Mondo Bizarro Productions (at Catapult Theater, Bulbancha), premiered 8 December 2022. [Currently under consideration for publication.]
“Pour la revitalisation de la langue traditionelle dans le district d’Attakapas, en Louisiane, Leçon 1,” Feux Follets: Revue de la création littéraire 17: Traces à suivre (2022) 17-20.
“Ishak Indigenous People,” 64 Parishes Encyclopedia, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2022.
Jeffery U. Darensbourg and Sara Černe, “An Interview with Jeffery Darensbourg,” part of Indigenous Mississippi: Indigenous Art and Activism of the Mississippi River, Northwestern University, 2022. [online written interview with links]
“Wilderness Begins in the Colonized Mind; Let It Die There,” in Rare Earth, edited by Carol Anne McChrystal, Keturah Cummings, and Lucinda Dayhew (Leipzig: D21 Kunstraum, 2022).
“Telling It Right: In Search of the Ishak” and “Bulbancha Is Still a Place: Decolonizing the Tricentennial of New Orleans” in Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community, edited by Rain Prud'homme-Cranford, Darryl Barthé and Andrew J. Jolivétte (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021).
“Bulbancha: Honoring Indigenous Cultures of the Area in a Single Word,” in Prospect.5: Yesterday We Said Tomorrow, edited by Naima J. Keith and Diana Nawi (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2021) 52-57.
“Introduction,” in Rain Prud’homme-Cranford’s Miscegenation Round Dance: Poèmes Historiques (Norman, OK: Mongrel Empire Press, 2021).
“A Studio in the Woods” and “The Ears of That Dog Are Torn,” Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought Spring 2021, 135-139.
“Hunting Memories of the Grass Things: An Indigenous Reflection on Bison in Louisiana,” Southern Cultures 27(1), 2021, 14-24.
“We Are Together Now: Notes on the Film Hoktiwe: Two Poems in Ishakkoy,” Genealogy 5(2), 2021.
“Hoktiwe” Transmotion 6(2), 2020, 138-141.
“Indigenous People of Louisiana and Oil Industry: An Ishak Reflection,” The Equation [Union of Concerned Scientists blog], 2019,
Jeffery U. Darensbourg and David Kaufman, “Ishak Words: Language Renewal Prospects for a Historic Gulf Coast Tribe.” In Language in Louisiana: Community and Culture. Dajko, N. and Walton S., eds. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2019.
“Native Dirt and Native Memory: Mounds and Middens of Louisiana,” Antenna::Signals, Fall 2018, 8-11.
Jeffery U. Darensbourg and Ozone504 eds., Bulbancha Is Still a Place: Indigenous Culture from “New Orleans” (zine), two issues, 2018-2019.
Shane Lief and Jeffery U. Darensbourg, “Popular Music and Indigenous Languages of Louisiana,” Proceedings of the Foundation for Endangered Languages 19:2015, 142-146 (2015).
Other Sorts of Media, a Selection (with links when available):
Featured interviewee, “We Could All Use a Little Creativity,” Sea Change (NPR podcast). 5 July 2023.
Featured on Road Food (PBS), EP10—Southern Louisiana: Gumbo, January 2022.
Listen to New Orleans: Bayou Choupic (Prospect.5 collaboration with Sarrah Danziger, 2021-2022), audio with transcript.
Cofounder, Unrecognized Stories Project (with Hali Dardar and Ida Aronson), 2021.
Featured documentary talking head, Big Chief Black Hawk, directed by Jonathan Isaac Jackson, The Colored Section, 2021.
Cast, We Will Always Be Here, a film by Ty Defoe and Katherine Freer, 2020.
“P.5—Cooking Sections: Oyster Readings—Jeffery Darensbourg,” directed by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe (the duo known as Cooking Sections), Prospect New Orleans, January 2021.
“Hoktiwe: Two Poems in Ishakkoy,” a film by Fernando López featuring the words and music of Jeffery U. Darensbourg, part of the exhibition “Make America What America Must Become,” Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, 2020-2021.
Interviewed by Marta Rodriguez Malek in “Reports from New Orleans | Uncovering Truths,” Montez Press Radio, November 2020.
Featured voice. Laine Kaplan-Levinson, “New Orleans: 300 // Bulbancha: 3000,” 20 December 2018, in TriPod: New Orleans At 300, produced by WWNO, podcast.
Residencies:
KoFest Residency, Belchertown, Massachusetts, May to June 2024.
Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington, December 2023.
MB Presents, Mondo Bizarro Productions, Catapult Theater, Bulbancha, December 2022.
A Studio in the Woods, Tulane University, March to June 2020.
Degrees:
Ph.D., Cognitive Science, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007.
M.L.I.S., School of Library and Information Science, Louisiana State University, 1999.
B.A., Philosophy & Biblical Studies (double major), Wheaton College (IL), 1993. [Note: Jeffery does not espouse the social or religious views promoted by the administration of that institution.]
About, a selection:
Paul Schmelzer, 2021, “Bulbancha Forever: From NOLA to Minneapolis, a movement to revitalize Indigenous names grows,” The Ostracon, https://theostracon.net/bulbancha-indigenous-naming-jeffery-darensbourg/
Rachel Breunlin, 2020, “Decolonizing Ways of Knowing: Heritage, Living Communities, and Indigenous Understandings of Place,” Genealogy 4(3), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4030095
Other:
AmeriCorps alumnus. Former school teacher. Tournament chess player. Wikipedia editor as “Hoktiwe.” Musician and flute maker. Lots of professional cooking experience. Cyclist. Quite handy generally.