November 1998

CLASnotes

Vol. 12 The University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

No. 11

The Keene Faculty Center

November 12,1998 is an important
date for CLAS. On that day we
will dedicate and inaugurate the
Keene Faculty Center, a marvelous
historic renovation project in the
old banquet room of Dauer Hall.
President Lombardi will lead the
dedication ceremony at 2:00 PM.
Please come and see this new
Center for yourself.
So what's the purpose and role
of the Keene Faculty Center? As the
name would imply, it is primarily
intended for the faculty. With the
guidance of a faculty Advisory
Board, we will seek to understand
and develop a Center operation
that is in keeping with faculty
interests and wishes. The room will
feature comfortable arrangements
of couches, chairs, and tables to
facilitate faculty interchange,
discussion, and relaxation with
colleagues across CLAS and
beyond. Anticipated is a coffee and
tea service each morning. Periodic
lunches may also be planned, if
interest is there.
It is important to understand
that this is not a faculty club. There
are no dues, obligations, or other
formal organization infrastructure.
The facility will be there for faculty
to use to the extent they wish.
Exactly how it will be used can
only be determined as we see what
level of faculty interest exists. The
faculty Advisory Board will be
working with us in the College
Office to develop an optimum
mode of operation, one that best
serves you.
The Keene Faculty Center is also
envisioned as a multifunctional

See Musings, page 12

The Center for African Studies
Over the Years
by Center Director Michael Chege

t is not easy to explain what a non-
teaching research center like ours
does at the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences, and how it came to be.
We are sometimes mistaken for the
African-American Studies program, or the
Student Union-funded Institute for Black
Culture. Both, however, are separate
institutions with which we have intimate
professional ties. In fact, our work is
closely integrated with that of many regular
teaching departments in our College and in
other colleges at the UF, all of which have
courses or research programs that touch
on one aspect or another of the African
continent and its peoples. We have over
100 faculty affiliates of this Center spread
around the campus, each based in his/her
home department. Mine for example is
political science.
There have always been CLAS faculty
and graduate students interested in African
societies, African geography, African
natural resources, African agriculture
and African languages. But the idea of
founding a Center for African Studies

CAS staff and affiliates (1 to r): Laurean N
Poli. Sci. Aug. 1998), who has returned t
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Carol Lauriai
Manager); Olabiyi Yai (AALL); and Fu
Lillian Osaki (ABD, English), who will r
Salaam to teach upon receiving her degree
This month's focus: Cen

that would bring `'
together all the
interested parties

dinate colla-
borative re-
search, exchange
programs,
campus guest
speakers and CAS Director
fund-raising did Michael Chege
not happen until
1964. In that
year a group of far-sighted scholars at
CLAS had the Center incorporated as an
integral part of the UF's effort to intensify its
reach in international graduate scholarship,
and extend its contacts with universities
abroad.
It should be recalled that in the US
after the Second World War, contrary to
these days, there was very strong popular
desire to understand the rest of the world.
Much of this had to do with the national
trauma caused by involvement of the war
itself in practically all the continents of the
world. By the 1950s,
this concern yielded to
the need for containing
the sphere of influence
of the then Soviet
Union. The launching
of the Sputnik into
outer space by the
Soviet Union in 1958
spurred the US federal
government to even
greater concern for
domestic and global
policies needed to
Idumbaro (PhD buttress the base of US
o teach at U of scientific knowledge,
ult (CAS Office and to foster a better
Bright Fellow understanding of
eturn to Dar es nations abroad.

e. See African Studies, page 12
iter for African Studies

Around the College

DEPARTMENTS
GEOGRAPHY
Cesar N. Caviedes has been invited to be the keynote
speaker at Geography Awareness Week to be celebrated
at the University of Puerto Rico on November 11-13. His
address will deal with the distant effects of El Nino and
Anti-Ninos on hurricane frequency and increased rainfall
in the Caribbean region. In addition, Caviedes will hold a
short seminar for faculty and graduate students to discuss
current methodologies in climatological research.

MATHEMATICS
Yunmei Chen visited and lectured at East Normal Univer-
sity, Jilin University and Fudan University in China during
May and June of this year.

In July Helmut Volklein gave an invited lecture at a confer-
ence on Arithmetic of Fields conducted by the Mathema-
tisches Forschungsinstitut, Oberwolfach, Germany. He also
visited Erlangen University, Germany.

Neil White gave an invited talk at an international confer-
ence on Combinatorial Methods, in Porto, Portugal, July
7-12.

PHILOSOPHY
Marilyn Holly is an invited speaker on "The future of
environmental philosophy" at the November Florida Philo-
sophical Association Meeting.

Greg Ray is an invited visiting associate this term at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

SOCIOLOGY
At the invitation of the Herczeg Institute on Aging and the
Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv
University, Jay Gubrium, professor of sociology, lectured
on "Narrative Practice and the Construction of Life Stories."
He also gave a faculty seminar entitled "Working at the In-
tersection of Biography, Narrative, and Culture," sponsored
by Tel Aviv University's School of Nursing.

* Homecoming Activities *

CLAS/LAW Barbecue

* All CLAS faculty, staff, students and alumni are invited to
* the annual CLAS/College of Law BBQ, Friday, November 13,
* from 11AM until the parade ends. Barbecue will be served
under the big blue and white tent on the north side of Flint
Hall (facing University Avenue and the parade). The home-
* coming barbecue is sponsored by Bruce S. Bullock (LS '55,
* LLB '62) and Sam Y. Allgood, Jr. (JD '49).

Homecoming Magic Show
* As a new feature of the CLAS Homecoming festivities,
* Gardiner Myers (Chemistry) is giving a magic show in the
SCLB Auditorium. Myers is staging two performances, one
at 10AM and one at 3PM, so stop by on your way to or from
Sthe CLAS barbecue!

Theatre and Dance
Connected to Center
The Agbedidi African Dance
and Drum, under the direction
of Department of Theatre and
Dance professor Joan Frosch and
UF's African Artist-in-Residence
Moustapha Bangoura, will per-
form at the Center for Performing
Arts on Saturday, November 21,
at 8PM. The African Artist-in-
Residence program is partially
funded by The Center For Afri-
can Studies.
For more information, contact
Sharon Burney, (352) 396-7022.

Fall Performance
for African Studies

Abou Sylla (left) and Mousta-
pha Bangoura (right).

Keene Faculty Center Open House November 12

The newly renovated Keene Faculty Center
(in the old language lab off the SW corner of
Dauer Hall) will open its doors on Thursday,
November 12. President Lombardi and
S1i s donors Ken and Janet Keene will be present
for the dedication ceremony at 2PM, and an
open house and refreshments will follow.
All faculty and staff are invited to attend.

Around the College

Bjorndal Secures $50,000 for
Sea Turtle Research

On October 17, Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research
Director Karen Bjorndal (far right) accepted a check for
$50,000 for sea turtle research from Ocean Fund, a division
of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Also pictured (from left):
President Lombardi, Alan Bolten (Archie Carr Center
for Sea Turtle Research), Dean Harrison, and Marla Moran

CLAS Academic Advisors Attend
National Conference

Academic Advisors in CLAS recently attended the Na-
tional Academic Advising Association Conference in San
Diego, October 4-7. Three advisors from the CLAS Aca-
demic Advising Center presented at the conference: Lynn
O'Sickey co-presented with former CLAS Academic Advi-
sor Ann Gleason (now with Meredith College) "Breaking
New Ground: Creative Techniques for Advisor Training";
Glenn Kepic co-presented with an advisor from California
Polytechnic State University "When Does No Mean No?";
and Jeanna Mastrodicasa presented "Law School Bound?
Pre-Law Advising for the General Advisor." Other con-
ference attendees from CLAS were Associate Dean for
Student Affairs Albert Matheny, and advisors Lou Powers
and Jenna Dolan. CLAS was nominated for two awards
in technology in advising, one for the Academic Advising
Center Web site (http:www. advising.ufl.edu) and the other
for CLAS-E advisor, the e-mail advisor.

New Political Science Endowment to
Fund Scholarships

A new endowment in Political Science has been estab-
lished in memory of the late H. Douglas Price, Markham
Professor of Government at Harvard University. The H.
Douglas Price Scholarship in American Government will
be given annually to a UF political science graduate student
to support study in American government. Scholarship
recipients will be chosen primarily on the basis of academic
ability and secondarily on need.
Born in Bradenton, Florida, Price earned his bachelor's
and master's degrees in political science at UF ('52 and
'53). After earning his doctorate at Harvard University, he
taught briefly at UF, Columbia and Syracuse universities
before joining the faculty at Harvard in 1966. An expert
on congressional elections and the effects of party change
on the evolution of the House and Senate, he was author
of The Negro and Southern Politics and The Rise and Decline
in Anglo American Experience, and co-author of Readings in
Political Parties and Pressure Groups. Price's brother, John R.
Price (CLAS '58), started the scholarship fund-currently
a $20,000 endowment-to commemorate his older sibling,
who passed away in 1996.

(left to right:) Lynn O'Sickey, Glenn Kepic, Jeanna Mastrodicasa,
AlbertMatheny, Albert Matheny, Jr., Lou Powers, Sharon Drumheller
(UF College ofHealth and Human Performance), and Jenna Dolan at
the National Academic Advising Association Conference.

-"- UNIVERSITY OF

I FLORIDA

CLAS notes is published monthly by the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
to inform faculty and staff of current
research and events.

Dean:
Editor:
Asst. Editor:
Graphics:

Will Harrison
Jane Gibson
Ronee Saroff
Gracy Castine

Preserving the Past (Part II)

Oral History Collection Includes Civilian Conservation Corps Interviews

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established in 1933 for the dual purpose
of conserving natural resources and providing employment for young men during the
Great Depression. During its nine years existence, the CCC employed 3,463,766 men
in 4,500 camps across the nation. These men carried out numerous projects for the
conservation of the natural and historical resources of the United States through forest
protection and improvement, soil erosion control, building restoration, state park
development, and road construction. Enrollees were required to send $25 of their $30
monthly cash allowance home to their families. Often this was the only income their
families received, and it is estimated that the CCC checks directly benefited twelve to
fifteen million people. With the onset of World War II and the demand for men in the
military, the CCC was eliminated in June 1942.
The following excerpts were taken from Julian Pleasants' 1998 interview with Jake
Keene, a 79 year-old ex-CCC worker who lives in Booker, Florida.

On the effects of the Depression:
I only hope that the American people are
never faced with that situation again. It
was a terrible time. I came out of it with
enough knowledge and enough training
that I could go on and make a living. I
could have done several things with
[the things] I learned how to do while I
was in the CCC that I could have made
a living from. I learned responsibilities.
I learned the value of a dollar.

On his mother:
When I went into the CCC, it took the
pressure off of her a lot...she said that
the first check that she got from my
allotment was twenty-five dollars. She
said that was the most money she
had seen in years, since 1925.....She
took ...five dollars and had her electric
turned on and the kids were gleeful
about switching the electricity on. Then
things picked up with that allotment.
She got things back to nearly normal.

On FDR:
As far as I am concerned, he is the only
true politician who ever lived. He got
down and he lived with us. He lived
with the poor people and unemployed
of this country. He went against norms
and he put programs in place. He did
not give anyone anything. He never
handed out anything for free. You had
to go out and do something for it. We
had the WPA and the PWA and all of
those programs. A man went out there
and worked for it. He did not just walk
up and get it for nothing. The CCC was
the same way. It provided employment,
but we did a service and everybody got
good from it. It was estimated that of
the 3,000,000 young men who served
in it, each one provided for four others.
The allotment averaged out to provide
for a mother and father and at least two
children who he left behind. In my case,
it was five and a mother

On his first experience with the
CCC:
It was brush and trail. There were a lot
of heavy stones on that path. We would
just move them out, but we did not just
stack them up like a lot of places you
see. We buried them and took the sand
from one hole and put it in another and
put a rock in that hole. You could see
it, but it was not laying out on top of
the ground....I would love to go back
there and walk that trail. I know it must
be beautiful now.

On medical care:
There were accidents. The CCC was
not a safety conscious operation. The
foreman would see a fellow doing
something wrong and he would talk
to him about it, but we never had any
safety classes that I recall. I do not
recall anybody being seriously injured,
either....We had a doctor everywhere
I ever was. They were generally old,
retired army doctors who did not want
to quit. They came to the camps. We
had a big Irishman out in Nevada
named McGlaughlin. He was like most
Irishmen, he was prone to drink a little
too much. But, he was a good doctor.

On how CCC workers were treated
in the towns they worked in:
They treated us great. In Pennsylvania,
we had a little bit of problems to begin
with because we were Southerners in
Yankee country. That camp had been
there for a long time, but northern boys
had been in it, and they were accepted
pretty well. They kind of looked at us
with a cross eye. It did not take long
until they saw that we were Americans
just like them. We were not up there
to redo the Civil War or anything
even though we were fifty miles from
Gettysburg.

On the importance of the CCC:
I believe that the final report that was
put out will justify the statement that the

Alumni of the CCC (including Jake
Keene, right rear) gather on a suspen-
sion foot bridge which crosses the
Santa Fe River in O'Leno State Park.
The bridge was built by CCC workers
before WWII.

CCC was one of the greatest programs
ever devised in this country. Money-
wise, it had a great effect on the people.
The forests of this country before the
CCC were completely obliterated. They
had been ravaged....Take the state of
Florida. The CCC put two companies
in the Ocala National Forest. They
began restoration projects replacing
all of the timber and cutting down all
the bad timber. It was the same thing
they did at Osceola and Apalachicola
Forests. They restored those forests....
The CCC also developed and built the
very first eight state parks that began
the Florida park system.

On segregation in the CCC:
I never saw any integration. In fact, it
was so segregated that they never put
Yankees with Southerners and certainly
no colored with whites. It was strictly
segregated.

Best thing about CCC:
It took me from a period that was down
for a young man. I was just starting
out and there was not a thing in the
world that was looking good and it put
me into a position where I was helping
and doing something... it was a great
experience. It made me feel a little bit
better about myself....It was a beautiful
thing. It could still be a beautiful thing
even today under certain conditions. It
would have to be a little different, but it
could be a great thing.k

Zoologists in Africa

In conjunction with CAS, Zoology professors Lauren and Colin Chapman, who joined the faculty at UF in 1993,
work in Uganda each summer at the Makerere University Biological Field Station in Kibale National Park.

Cn: Since your relationship
with the Kibale field station
precedes your career at UF,
you were able to bring in your
experience with Kibale to the
program here.

CC: Right. We'd been doing
research there since 1989, and
then once we came here (1993)
the program blossomed. We've
taken a couple of field courses to
Kibale, but mostly we go over
there with graduate students
who are doing their own at
research. Coming to UF was
really great because through the
Center for African Studies' involvement
with Makerere University there were
already many links with Uganda. We
just added our work to an existing
program...quite nice.

LC: In fact, when we joined the
University of Florida, the biologist that
initiated the Kibale field station many
years ago was at UF as an affiliate of
the Department of Wildlife, Ecology
and Conservation. So it was wonderful
for us to come here because of all the
existing connections with Uganda,
connections that span different fields
including law, archaeology, socio-
economics, and medicine.

Cn: Tell us about your research.

CC: Lauren studies things under water
and I study things above the water, so
we divide up the world between us.
I primarily study primate ecology. I
try to understand what determines
the abundance of primates in different
areas and the size of primate groups,
and I also look at how primates impact
the environment by examining things
like seed dispersal...how primates and
other animals transport seeds so that
the forest can regenerate.

Cn: Is anything threatening the
primates' existence? Development?

CC: Sure a number of the species we
study are endangered. Prior to 1993
Kibale was a forest reserve, so there was
actually logging done in the forests,
and at the south of the park there was
agricultural encroachment. In 1993 it

Lo
Ki

became a national
park and became
protected-but
what the old
logging and agri-
cultural areas
provide us with
is a template of
different sorts of
human distur-
bances. It's nice
because it's con-
trolled in some
lin Chapman sense-there's no
bale in Uganda hunting-and we
can look directly
at each disturbance
to gauge its influence on the primates
in order to try and understand what
determines the abundance of primates
in Kibale in each of these sorts of
areas. The idea is fairly conservation
based...we're trying to figure out the
determinants of community structure
and community size, and we can then
apply that information to managing
populations that are outside of protected
areas.

LC: We work closely
with the Ugandan
Wildlife Authority,
and they've asked us
to provide them with 7....
research information
for questions they have
about the National
Park. We#ilso work -
very closely with the
Fisheries Research ''
Institute in our work -
with aquatic systems.
It's nice to collaborate
closely with people
that are managing these
systems and to help by
providing them with
specific information Laure;
required to develop (Nile Perc
certain conservation
management
initiatives.

Cn: Tell us about what you do on the
water side, Lauren.

LC: I have two major research
themes aquatic ecology and aquatic
conservation. On the ecology side of

n L
h ii

things, my research in Uganda has
focused a great deal on the respiratory
ecology of fishes. I've been particularly
interested in how oxygen-scarce
conditions affect the distribution or
abundance of these fishes.

Cn: Is the lack of oxygen part of a
natural process?

LC: The reason the wetlands are
so oxygen scarce is because of the
dense vegetation, and high rates of
decomposition-there is very little
light that can reach the waters beneath
and not much wind action so you get
stagnant waters with high levels of
decomposition. But there are also
situations where low oxygen conditions
are promoted by human activity....
agricultural run off and sewage
discharge can lead to eutrification,
or nutrient loading, of certain lakes.
This actually ties in to a very big
conservation issue and to our aquatic
conservation program, which focuses
on the other side of the country where
we have another field site in the Lake
Victoria Basin. Lake
Victoria is the largest
tropical freshwater
lake in the world,
and it shares its water
S with Uganda, Kenya
and Tanzania.
And it is a really
special system
because it harbored
about 600 species
of endemic fishes-
fishes that evolved
in that system. In
the early 1950s and
60s they introduced
a large predatory
fish, the Nile perch,
into the lake in an
attempt to translate
chapmann small fishes into a
n foreground) large exportable food
product. The Nile
perch population
explosion in the late 1970s coincided
with the disappearance of about 50%
of these endemic fishes. It was a
tremendous loss of biodiversity, and
it's received a lot of international
attention. But at the same time, the

See Uganda, page 7

New Faculty

Swapna Banerjee joins the CLAS Department of History from Brown University. She
received her PhD in history (South Asian and comparative third world) from Temple
University. Her research interests include colonialism, nationalism and gender in South
Asian contexts; colonial and postcolonial literature and critical studies; family history
and the history of domestic labor. She is currently an affiliated scholar with the women's
studies program at Brandeis University, and teaches courses in Asian and South Asian
history, comparative third world history and women's history. She enjoys reading,
translating women's writing from Bengali to English, cooking, watching films and
listening to music in her free time.

Maude Hines, an assistant professor of English, earned her PhD this summer from
Duke University, where she also earned certificates in African and African-American
studies and women's studies. She is working on a book about the role of race and
gender in fairy tales of nation-building and citizen-making in late nineteenth-
century American literature for children. Her research and teaching interests include
children's literature, cultural studies, US literature since the Civil War, and African-
American literature. She is currently teaching undergraduate courses on the Golden
'9 Age of Children's Literature, and Race and Ethnicity in American Literature. Her
/ ? outside interests include thrift shopping, tennis, and road trips.

John Palmer, an assistant professor of philosophy, received his PhD in classical
philosophy from Princeton, where he was a Mellon Fellow. He came to UF from Clare
Hall, Cambridge University, where he worked as a research fellow and affiliated lecturer
in classics. Palmer has a book forthcoming with Oxford University Press (UK) entitled
Plato's Reception ofParmenides. His current research focuses on the nature of influence
within Presocratic thought, but his interests extend over the whole range of ancient
philosophy, and he is pursuing smaller projects on Socrates, Xenocrates, Aristotle, and
ancient skepticism. He is presently teaching Honors Introduction to Philosophy and a
graduate seminar on Aristotle. His outside interests include travel, cooking, and music.

P.H. Tiep, an assistant professor of mathematics, came to
UF from Ohio State, where he was the Zassenhaus Assistant Professor. He earned
his PhD from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia in 1989. His research
interests include algebra, group theory and number theory. He has been trying to
understand group representations with some "good behavior." This kind of question
is particularly motivated by applications in number theory. He teaches undergraduate
and graduate mathematics courses. He enjoys music and
sports.

Assistant professor of chemistry Dennis Lee Wright completed his PhD in
chemistry at Ohio University, but was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University
before coming to UF His research focuses on organic synthesis, pharmacology
and neuroscience, and he teaches courses in organic chemistry. He is currently
researching design, synthesis and the biological study of new compounds for the
treatment of neural system diseases. His outside interests include reading and
antique collecting.

New Chair

George Bowes, Chair, Department of Botany

"Isn't that looking at flowers?" is a common response
when botany is mentioned. Well, to some extent that is
correct. Our department does offer a popular undergraduate
course in Local Flora, but as a discipline botany is far more
than "looking at flowers". It can involve photosynthetic
reactions happening in microseconds, or paleobotanists
examing events occurring over millions of years. It runs the
gamut from processes at the gene level to ecosystem and
even global studies.
Botany has deep roots in the University. It was taught at
the Florida Agriculture College in Lake City before the turn
of the century, and Peter Rolfs established the University's
oldest existing research collection, namely the herbarium. In
fact, Botany granted the first thesis MS degree ever awarded
by UF, to Wilbur Floyd in 1906. Floyd, along with Rolfs and
Hume, are famous names that are immortalized in historic
buildings on campus. All three were plant scientists in the
Department. It is indeed an honor to be asked to chair a
department with such an illustrious history.
Through CLAS and The College of Agriculture, Botany
averages some 40-50 undergraduate majors, and we share
teaching responsibilities with the Department of Zoology
in the large Biological Sciences Program, to provide
introductory courses for non-majors, majors and pre-
professional students.
For graduate students we offer master's degrees in
science (MS), agriculture (MAg) and teaching (MST), and of
course the PhD degree. We often place among the top five
departments in the University for incoming graduate student
GRE and GPA scores, and on more than one occasion we
have been number one.
What of the future? Our program in tropical ecology

recently attracted two bright
stars in Drs. Stephen Mulkey
and Kaoru Kitajima, a husband
and wife team, who specialize
in tropical ecology. They are
pioneering research that uses
the Smithsonian's 17-story crane
in Panama to investigate the
ecophysiology of the tropical
forest canopy.
The program in plant
physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology is also
forging ahead. Our faculty are known for several major
discoveries in plant biochemistry. This year we are searching
for a molecular plant physiologist, which is in keeping with
the University's thrust to increase its national visibility in
molecular biology.
As a link between our tropical and biochemistry programs
we plan to search for an ethnobotanist. Ethnobotany, which
centers around the biochemistry and pharmaceutical
applications of tropical plants, is a popular subject with
the present demand for alternative medicines. Even many
conventional drugs are plant derived.
Botany is indeed a broad discipline that impacts our lives
in numerous ways, including through the food we eat, the
clothes we wear, the energy we use, the climate we enjoy (or
endure), the drugs we use (or misuse), and even the oxygen
we breathe. Come and visit us at our home page: web.botany.ufl.edu/>http:/ /web.botany.ufl.edu/.
I thank Carl Van Ness of Smathers Library for historical
information.

Uganda, continued from page 5

Nile perch industry has been a great boost to the economies of three countries surrounding the lake (it's a $400 million dollar
industry).
We are looking at the role of wetlands as refugia for endangered fishes. What we have found is that fishes that can
tolerate low oxygen conditions and live in these wetlands have been protected from predation from Nile perch. We have
done studies looking at the tolerance of Nile perch to low oxygen, and we have found out that they are not very tolerant,
and they don't exploit wetlands, so the huge swamps that surround the lake have actually been extremely important to the
persistence of some species.
Although we've been doing a lot of work out on the main lake, we also use a small model system that is right next door-a
little lake called Lake Nabugabo. It's a good site where we can have graduate students work...and apply their results to the
larger lake. Ugandan students also do research at the sites. We serve as honorary lecturers at Makerere, so we can supervise
these students, which makes it easy to encourage interaction between Ugandan and UF graduate students.

CC: That's really nice because UF students are often a little idealistic to start off with...they feel the issue is simple: save the
endemic fishes. But the Ugandan students realize the complexity of the issue and the need to balance conservation with
economic viability. The ultimate goal is striking some sort of balance.%

The Chapmans and colleagues from the Center for African Studies have recently embarked on a joint graduate training program
funded by the Ford Foundation. The program, a collaborative effort between the Center for African Studies (UF), Makerere
University and the Fisheries Research Institute of Uganda,focuses on conservation issues of current importance to Uganda.

English Professor Works With CAS

An Interview with Mark Reid

Cn: You teach a course on African Cinema.

MR: Yes. It's "ENG4130: Race and Ethnicity
in Film," and most of the course deals with films
that have been made by African filmmakers.
The latter part of the course includes films
made by people of African descent who might
live in Europe or the Americas. I also include
works by African filmmakers like Haile Gerima,
John Akomfrah and Med Hondo who reside,
respectively, in the US, England and France,
but were born in the African nations of Ethiopia,
Ghana and Mauritania. I try to show how \
filmmakers who have attended film schools
in the US, England and France integrate their -
African and Western experiences and cultural Mark Ri
customs into their films. For instance, you might
notice that Jean-Luc Godard, a French New
Wave filmmaker, has influenced the editing style of the Senegalese
filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety's Touki Bouki (1973) or that
the Cameroonian Jean-Pierre Bekola's Quartier Mozart (1992) is
stylistically similar to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989). What
I understand in all this border crossing and international borrowing
is that we have become much closer through sharing educational
and artistic sensibilities. And one does not have to refer to Picasso's
African borrowings to understand this.

Cn: Are there regional styles offilmmaking within the African
Continent?

MR: The personality of the European colonialists and their
associated cultures tends to come through in the filmmaking
practices of each region. Of course the indigenous cultures tend
to prevail in the aesthetic aspects of African film. But these factors
and those of the colonial are all layered like an onion; you have to
peel each layer away. West African francophone films tend to have
narrative styles that emphasizes lyrical qualities that are found in
French and American films. Then you have the anglophone African
films. Since the British have a strong documentary tradition many
of the early anglophone African films were rural documentaries,
although this has changed and countries like Nigeria produce
popular fiction films that make use of their indigenous street theater
tradition. Films from the former Portuguese colonies often center
on political conflict and this results from the fact that they waged a
bloody war to gain their independence from Portugal. Films from
Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau or other lusophone countries produce
many sociopolitical semi-documentaries on past and present issues.
This regional cinema is very similar to Latin American cinema
of the Sixties and Seventies. Lastly, you have the North African
film, which is commonly referred to as Arab cinema and includes
such countries as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt. Egyptian
film, for example, has a long tradition that dates back to Mohamed
Bayoumi's The Civil Servant (1922), while Black African-directed
films [south of the Sahara] make their first appearance immediately
after liberation in the 1960s.

Cn: In conjunction with the Center for
African Studies, you coordinated last year's
Carter Lecture Series, which focused on
C African Film.

'1 ^ MR: Yes. The Carter Lecture Series is a very
prestigious conference. [Held at UF every year,
the series is named after internationally-known
African Studies pioneer and leader Gwendolyn
Carter, who spent the latter part of her career at
UF.] The series featured an impressive group
of published African scholars an Ethiopian
S.filmmaker and South African, Gambian and
Nigerian scholars, among others- and we
were able to screen the most recent African
(English) films, which facilitated sometimes-heated
discussions.
One of the films, Ingrid Sinclair's Flame
(1996), was directed by a white Zimbabwean woman and related
the role of women in the liberation struggle in Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe). This film [a fictional film based on the actual
struggle] was very controversial because it showed that these black
Zimbabwean women who fought and struggled alongside the men
still have little representation in the government. One of the issues
raised in discussing this film was "is this an African film since it
is made by a white?" My argument is yes since Ingrid Sinclair
is a native born Zimbabwean and her film presents the necessary
(her) story of an African nation's struggle for liberation. Another
film we showed was Guinean Mohamed Camara's Dakan (1997),
the first African film to depict African male homosexuality. A
few of the attendees said that this wasn' t an African film, that it
was made for the West and that Africa didn't have homosexuality
before the appearance of Europeans. So we had an energetic debate
on this subject and the inclusion of white African filmmakers
into the African film canon. We were a small intimate group of
scholars -like an African family composed of a multicultural and
interracial mix. We all stayed together at the Union. We had great
local attendance from students and faculty from the humanities,
the Gainesville community, and interested alumni, some of whom
had recently returned from African fieldwork. It was quite an
experience.

Cn: When did you first become involved with the Center for
African Studies?

MR: I've always had an interest in Africa... I studied African and
Arab film in Paris and studied African literature during my Ph.D.
studies at the University of Iowa. Thanks to the African Studies
program at Iowa, I was able to teach African American literature
at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
When I arrived here in 1988, knew that UF had a very important
Center for African Studies, so I became affiliated with them right
from the start. Most of my research on African cinema, in fact, has
been funded by the Center. Their support allows me to attend the
Festival of PanAfrican Cinema (FESPACO), which is held every
see Reid, page 12

Faculty Profile

UF Cardiologist Collaborates with the Center for African Studies

People can go two routes on a
sabbatical," says Jape Taylor,
Distinguished Service Professor
Emeritus of Medicine (Cardiology). "They
basically can do what they're already doing
somewhere else, like London or Paris, or
they can choose something completely
different. I wanted to spend my sabbatical
in an area where medical education was
badly needed and where I could experience
a different way of living." Taylor found
what he was looking for in Nigeria, where
he traveled with his wife and youngest son
in 1974.
After the end of the Biafran Civil War
(1970), Nigeria embarked on a program to
start several new medical schools. Doctor
Taylor contributed to this effort by joining
the faculty at the University of Ife's state
hospital. His task was to help get the
state hospital medical wards running in
a way that would foster good health care
and teaching. The Dean of the Medical
School, whom Taylor describes as "a
brilliant Cambridge-educated Nigerian,"
wanted students to learn in the same type
of facilities in which they would later work,
so students and faculty were required to
make diagnoses primarily from medical
histories and physical examinations, since
only rudimentary laboratory tests were
available.
This challenge frustrated more than a
few visiting doctors from the US. Without
the technological support systems they
were accustomed to, some of these doctors
"couldn't cope," says Taylor. Fortunately,
as he received his education at a time
when cardiologists were given a strong
background in internal medicine, Taylor
enjoyed this challenge. Besides, in Nigeria

Jape Taylor (Cariology)
and Faye Gary (Nursing)

the per capital annual expenditure on medical
care was less than $10-as it still is in most
sub-Saharan countries-so it would have
been inappropriate to spend precious health
care funds on high tech medical machinery
when so many people were dying of
easily preventable and treatable infectious
diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis and
cholera. To this day, Taylor feels that
learning how to provide good health care
with basic equipment (including having to
do all blood work and labs oneself, as he
did in Nigeria) is great training for medical
students.
Although the University of Florida
does not have a formal exchange program
with African hospitals, Taylor has helped
interested medical students get short-term
elective rotations in Africa, and has also
stimulated others in the health professions
to work there. "One of my former residents
is a woman who has been working in
Ethiopia for the last eight or nine years as a
malaria control officer for the World Health
Organization ," he says. Another former
student worked in Zaire for six years and
trained a large number of their OB-GYN
doctors; she is now in Malawi.
After working with Taylor for years
on local human rights issues, Faye Gary,
UF's first Distinguished Service Professor
in Nursing, became a Kellogg Foundation
Fellow and worked and consulted on
health care in Southern Africa. "Among
other things she helped nurses in tiny,
beleaguered, poverty-stricken Lesotho to
write and publish a book on health care
in their area," Taylor says. Despite the
pride Taylor feels in having influenced
these women, he is quick to point out that
"three people are not many compared to
the need."
Not long after he came back from
Nigeria in 1975, Taylor's new "bond" with
Africa led him to attend Center for African
Studies barazas, or weekly lectures. Soon
he became a member of their Advisory
Council and in 1994 was chosen as
the Council's first elected chair. "The
Center of African Studies has been a very
meaningful institution for me," says Taylor.
"It's one of the few places on campus
where one has in-depth interactions with
people from a great variety of disciplines.
Through CAS, I developed friends who
are anthropologists, political scientists,

Jape Taylor, Karen Holbrook and Win-
ston Nagan in Kibale Forest, Uganda.

agronomists, historians, lawyers, artists,
and writers, among others."
After 23 years of affiliation with CAS,
the retired Taylor remains what African
Studies Director Michael Chege calls
"a steadfast actor and supporter" of the
Center's work. In 1996 Taylor, Faye
Gary, Natural Resources scientist David
Wigston and Winston Nagan, James
Pierce, Don Peters and Marty Peters of the
Law School traveled to Uganda as a part
of an USAID- sponsored linkage grant
between the University of Florida and
Makerere University. They collaborated
with faculty from HURIPEC (Makerere's
Human Rights and Peace Center) in
multi-disciplinary workshops that Taylor
describes as "absolutely fabulous." In
December of 1997, Taylor returned to
Makerere with then UF Graduate School
Dean Karen Holbrook, Nagan, Professor
Peter Schmidt, and Representative Cynthia
Chestnut for the dedication of the HURIPEC
building, which the USAID linkage grant
helped to build.
"The programs and events at HURIPEC,"
says Taylor, "have all centered around
human rights in a very expanded sense-
not just the right to vote and not be
unjustly imprisoned or tortured, but
also to have access to education, health,
power, affection, rectitude and, above all,
respect."
It's this type of commitment to human

See Taylor, page 10

G rants (through Division of Sponsored Research)
September 1998 Total $1,067,863

Investigator Dept. Agency Award Title

Corporate...$ 159,914
Dolbier, Jr., W. CHE Elf.
Katritzky, A. CHE CO
Katritzky, A. CHE Dot
Katritzky, A. CHE Mu
Katritzky, A. CHE Nut
Katritzky, A. CHE Pro
Reynolds, J. CHE Loc
Tanner, D. PHY Ter
Swanson, B. POL Cit3
Thomas, C. CRI Mu

Federal...$
Anton, S.
Chen, K.
Talham, D.
Waylen, P.
Hodell, D.
Brenner, M.
Opdyke, N.
Screaton, E.

Albarracin, D.
Akers, R.
Pyke, K.

Atochem
R Therapeutics
vElanco
it Comp
:rasweet Co.
cter & Gamble
kheed Martin
acom Research
i of High Spgs
it Sources

467,129
ANT NSF
AST NASA
CHE NASA
GEO DOC

GLY NSF
GLY NSF
GLY NSF

PSY NIH
SOC DOJ
SOC NSF

Ghosh, M. STA
Guillette, Jr., L.
Denslow, N. ZOO

Foundation...$ 164,500
Hansen, A. ANT Rockefeller
Tan, W. CHE Whitaker
Sdcchitano, M. POL UF Athletic
Pendergrast, J. STA AAHP
Chapman, L.
Chapman, C. ZOO Beinecke

Other...$ 173,862
Eyler, J. CHE
Eyler, J. CHE
King, D. ENG
Caviedes, C. GEO
Mueller, P. GLY
Pendergrast, J. STA
Pendergrast, J. STA

State...$ 32,100
Carter, R. STA

Misc Donors
Misc Donors
Schomburg
Misc Donors
Misc Donors
AHCPR
AHCPR

FAMU

University...$ 70,358
Olson, T. MAT Johns Hopkins
Ihas, G. PHY U of Oregon

10,000
1,075
7,900
1,200
65,000
34,000
10,200
9,497
12,500
8,542

50,000
3,000
16,210
10,000

Insertion reaction of halocarbons into halogenated alkenes.
COR Therapeutics: Provision of Compounds.
DowElanco compounds agreement.
Miles compound contract.
Joint research agreement with the Nutrasweet group.
Procter & Gamble.
Electrochromic polymer development.
Effect transport current on the infrared properties of super conductors.
High Springs evaluation and appraisal report (ERA)
Private corrections project.

Australian cranial traits: Function, development and modern human origins.
USRP Photometric study of RV Crateris.
The features of self-assembling organic bilayers.
Benefit of incorporation Enso forecast into reservoir operation.

59,804 Climate variability and ecologic change in Mesoamerica during the late Holocene.
36,000 Collaborative research: Geomagnetic field for the last five MA.
60,254 Three-dimensional modeling of fluid and thermal transport within the Barbados
accretionary complex.
71,073 Predictors of the impact of condom use communications.
22,374 Evaluation of a post-adjudication felony drug court.
17,764 Mediating different cultural worlds: Adaptation processes of adult children of
Korean and Vietnamese immigrants.
63,556 Parametric and semiparametric Bayesian methods for small area estimation.

57,094 Endocrine disrupting contaminants in Southern Florida wetlands effects in non-
mammalian vertebrates.

23,500
74,865
13,200
41,435

Population displacement and food insecurity in Ethiopia.
Engineering and optical patch-clamp device for single ion channel recording.
A survey of attitudes regarding UF Women's basketball.
Quality of care for children with special health care needs in managed care.

11,500 Ugandan student support.

15,000
57,400
15,000
1,057
4,980
41,435
39,990

Miscellaneous donors.
Miscellaneous donors.
African Americans and the culture of pain.
Miscellaneous donors.
Miscellaneous donors.
Quality of care for children with special needs in managed care.
Adolescent health care: A comparison of five risk adjustment systems.

32,100 Informatics: Database management for Florida Birth Defects Registry.

16,250 Cost-reimbursement agreement between the Johns Hopkins U and the U of F.
54,108 Aeolian tones in superfluid helium.

Taylor, continued from page 9

rights that has fueled Taylor's continued work with the Center. He believes that privileged individuals and nations have responsibilities to
contribute toward the common good. "It is crucial to the future of the world and its people for us in the US to become more knowledgeable
about the developing countries and more aware of the broader dimensions of human rights," he says. "Many of the problems in Africa
are so florid that a blind person could see them. We have the same problems in the US, but on a more subtle level. What we learn from
Africa's problems (and their solutions to these problems) is applicable to our just as severe, but less obvious ones."%

Bookbeat

Impotent Fathers: Patriarchy and De-
mographic Crisis in the Eighteenth-
Century Novel
Brian McCrea
(English)
University
of Delaware
Press

(review taken
from book jack-
et)
Understand-
poet aing the novel
as both the
document and
the agent of
il i social change,
Impotent Fa-
thers studies
how writers in eighteenth-century
Britain at once recorded and helped to
define a major demographic
crisis suffered by the landed
elite from 1650 to 1740. To
questions about patriarchy, i
property, and gender in the Intrie
early novel, it brings recent
work on demographics by
the Cambridge Group for
the History of Population
Studies (E. A. Wrigley, R. S.
Schofield, Lloyd Bonfield,
and others) and by Lawrence
F. and Jeanne C. Fawtier
Stone. As eighteenth-century
families used fictive versions
of kinship to save their claims
to estates, so novels of the pe-
riod typically open with the failure of a
property owner to provide a legitimate
heir. Impotent Fathers proposes that the
early novel was an important means for
readers and writers to work through
anxieties about family, property, and
succession created by failures in patri-
linear succession.

(excerpt)
In tracing the manifestations of demo-
graphic crisis in Richardson and in nov-
els by female writers, I will depart most
directly from "patriarchal etiology" that
underlies much recent feminist criticism.
Rather than portraying the patriarch as a
powerfulfigure who either silences or vio-
lates the female spirit, Richardson, Lennox,
Inchbald, and Burney offer us patriarchs
who are absent, impaired or dead. This

i(a
pre

weakened patriarch creates difficulties
for female characters, but difficulties that
have less to do with oppression than with
the uncertainty created in families by the
absence of a commanding father.

Africa Entrepreneurship: Theory
and Reality
Edited by Anita Spring and Barbara
McDade (Geography)
University Press of Florida

(review taken from book jacket)
Practical and penetrating, this collection
explores the varieties of entrepreneur-
ship in Africa-rural and urban, legal
and illegal, formal and informal-and
considers the vital role of entrepre-
neurs in the economic development
of the continent from Ghana, Nigeria,
and Cameroon to Kenya, Zimbabwe,
Zambia, and South Africa.

(excerpt)
This volume contributes
to the process of answer-
eUshi p ing questions while at
.A ..... the same time posing
additional ones for fu-
ture consideration, as
part ofa continuing de-
bate about development.
These studies describe
and analyze enterprises
that vary in size from
manufacturing firms
with 100 or more em-
ployees to handicraft
enterprises with one
employee. In addition to enterprise or firm
size, the continuum offormal and informal
sectors and private and public (to a lesser
extent) enterprises is considered. In all,
these studies show that entrepreneurship is
not a missing commodity in Africa.

Problems in American Civilization:
The Origins of the Cold War Fourth
Edition
Robert J. McMahon (History) and
Thomas G. Paterson
Houghton Mifflin

(review from book jacket)
The fourth edition of The Origins of the
Cold War has been thoroughly revised
to present a balance of classic as well
as contemporary scholarly essays that
analyze this controversial event in

American history. This collection of
authoritative but conflicting views
allows students of history to interpret
and evaluate the issues, participants,
and events
for them-
selves.

(excerpt)
This book is
devoted to ex-
plaining the
origins of the
Cold War. Do
not expect a
comforting
unanimity
of opinion or h,. ,c.mi
a satisfying
synthesis.
Even within
the two major
schools of thought-the traditional and
the revisionist-disagreement abounds,
although historians have narrowed some
of their interpretive differences over time.
Much of the debate still centers on one
question: Whose fault was the Cold War?
Scholars are moving beyond that simple
query to examine shared responsibility
for the Cold War, the contributing role
of nations other than the United States
and the Soviet Union, and the nature of
the conflict-ridden international system.
But the question of blame remains at the
forefront of the debate.

Black May:
The Epic Sto-
ry of the Al-
lies' Defeat of
the German
U-Boats in
May 1943
Michael Gan-
non (History)

In addition
to receiving

a six-page review, Black May was
named The Editors' Choice of the
History Book Club Review, Midsum-
mer 1998.

Musings, continued from page 1

facility. It will serve as a grand
site for special lunches, dinners,
conferences, receptions, per-
formances, etc. In the main hall,
over 100 can be accommodated
for sit-down dinners and up to
200 for stand-up receptions. In
the restored Gallery overlooking
the main hall, about 30 people
can be seated for meals and 50 in
row seating for lectures, recitals,
and the like. The Center will offer
great versatility as a venue for
various college and department
functions.
Kenneth and Janet Keene are
the benefactors to whom we
owe due gratitude. You will
recall that the Keenes have been
strong supporters of CLAS in
many different areas. Indeed, we
are even now in the first stages
of planning for the complete
renovation of Flint Hall, closed
up for over 20 years, which will
soon be renovated in grand style
as Keene-Flint Hall, thanks to a
generous $3 million gift from the
Keenes. We can never find a way
to thank them adequately for their
dedicated support of CLAS.
Once again, we invite you
to be there for the dedication
of the Keene Faculty Center on
November 12. Come see what
is available to you, and let us
know how this could be made of
greatest use. Our faculty have
long needed a place to come
together informally, to chat with
a colleague, to write at a corner
table, to read the NY Times or
the Chronicle of Higher Education,
all in a setting of comfort and
convenience.
I look forward to seeing you in
the Keene Faculty Center.

Will Harrison,
Dean

African Studies (continued from page 1)

The US Congress thereafter
approved Title VI funding for
the most distinguished "area-
studies" university research
centers that showed promise in
fostering national understanding
of foreign languages, cultures,
politics, natural and geographic
circumstances. These centers
were designated "national
resource centers" for international
area studies. Federal funding
under Tite VI supports research,
exchange programs, fellowships,
campus guest speakers from
abroad, meetings and outreach
activities on whatever region the
center concerned deals with-in Jane
our case, Africa. phy,
In 1971, the University of Aru
Florida's Center for African and
Studies acquired the status of to p
"national resource center" and for
has remained so since. This is no
mean feat. To qualify, a university
center must demonstrate to an
independent panel of evaluators every
three years that it has a faculty of the
highest caliber that has shown sustained
interest in a given part of the world in a
very wide range of disciplinary fields. A
successful applicant must also demonstrate
that it has credible institutional contacts
abroad and can attract top rated graduate
students and visiting scholars. And that
is what this Center has managed to do,
thanks to a succession of competent
directors, a vigorous faculty and a keen
office staff.
This year for instance, the Center is
organizing in suchAfrican states as Nigeria,
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe,
South Africa, Malawi and Ethiopia. The
Center operates an undergraduate study-
abroad program at the University of Dar

t Puhalla (fourth from right), ABD Geogra-
,visits with a traditional farmer's group near
sha, Tanzania. She received a Foreign Language
Area Studies fellowship (FLAS) from the Center
participate in the Fulbright-Hays GPA program
Swahili in Tanzania this past summer.

es Salaam in Tanzania. And Center-
supported graduate students intend to
conduct research in states as diverse as
Morocco, Tanzania, Congo, Angola and
Mozambique. The disciplines involved
range from languages to urban planning
and wildlife conservation to science
education. UF graduates with an African
specialization in many disciplines can be
found inAfrican universities as researchers
and professors, as experts at the World
Bank and the United Nations, in the US
army, in the US state department, in other
branches of the US government, and in
noted international voluntary agencies like
Human Rights Watch and the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature.
It is a record of work over 34 years that
the UF can be justly proud of.k

R eid (continued from page 8)

other year in Burkina Faso. It's great to see the African audiences watch a film and to
"read" their reactions...I'm able to bring this information back to the American students
in my classes here as they watch these same films.
I also enjoy and benefit from meeting with the multi-disciplinary Center affiliates...
anthropologists, art historians, sociologists, etc. I have learned a lot about the cinematic
aspects and history of African film-the visual aspects, the filmmakers and the industry-
but there's something really important about going beyond film studies interpretation of this
art. For example, if a certain mask, say, appears in a film, I wouldn't know its significance.
But I can always ask an African art historian, such as Robin Poynor, who could interpret
the import of this particular mask and, in so doing, enrich my reading of African film.%

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