![]() ![]() |
![]() |
|
UFDC Home |
myUFDC Home | Help | ![]() |
Main | |
Around the college | |
New faculty | |
New chair | |
Faculty profile | |
Grants awarded through Division... | |
Bookbeat |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Full Citation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Downloads | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Table of Contents | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Main
Page 1 Around the college Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 New faculty Page 6 New chair Page 7 Page 8 Faculty profile Page 9 Grants awarded through Division of Sponsored Research Page 10 Bookbeat Page 11 Page 12 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Full Text | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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: 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.% |