The University of Florida
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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In this Issue:

Announcing the 2002-2003
CLAS Term Professors....................... 3

Fulbright Faculty ............................ 4

Chemistry Undergraduates
Experiment in France..................... 5

Learning to be Understood............. 6

Around the College ....................... 8

Grants.................................. ....10

Bookbeat ...................................... 11

Archaeological Summer
School Digs Deep ........................12

UNIVERSITY OF
FLORIDA
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
News and Publications
2008 Turlington Hall
PO Box 117300
Gainesville FL 32611-7300
editor@clas.ufl.edu
http://clasnews.clas.ufl.edu

CLASnotes is published monthly by the College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences to inform faculty,
staff and students of current research and
events.

Dean:
Editor:
Contr. Editor:
Design & Photography:
Graphics Intern:
Writing Intern:
Copy Editor:

Neil Sullivan
Allyson A. Beutke
Buffy Lockette
Jane Dominguez
Simone Williams
Kimberly A. Lopez
Lynne Pulliam

The Dean's

Musings

The Importance of
International Studies
At a time of uncertainty in world relations, students and
scholars seek a deeper understanding of society and the
different cultures and belief systems of peoples around the
world. Students are no longer satisfied with merely learning
to read and speak one or two languages, important as they
may be, but also seek a more meaningful grasp of different
customs, international literature, religion, history and eth-
ics in order to prepare themselves not only for more mean-
ingful careers but also for a more meaningful and more
fulfilling life. To earn the trust and respect that is essential
to success in the conduct of international business, foreign
diplomacy and global knowledge-building, nothing is more
important than the ability to understand our fellow human
beings in terms of their own societies and beliefs. Then we
can start to move forward together.
Our college is committed to providing a broad
international experience for all undergraduates, including
studies of international affairs, global political economies,
language and literature studies and studies of different civi-
lizations throughout history.
Development of strong programs in these areas is so
important for the future of our graduating students and is
in such demand that we are preparing a new BA degree in
international studies with our partner colleges. Indeed, we
believe that no student should be without a basic ground-
ing in some aspects of international studies on completion
of a first degree at the University of Florida. I would even
be willing to support the addition of a survey of world cul-
tures to the undergraduate core curriculum.
Equipped with a firm understanding of how world
affairs work, a sound footing in basic languages and litera-
tures and an appreciation of different societies, our students
will have the international dimension that will allow them
to succeed in the modern world and to help make the
world a better place for all to live.

Neil Sullivan
sullivan@phys. ufl. edu

Additional Photography:
Randy Duran: p. 5
Kimberly A. Lopez: p. 11 (Harry W. Paul)
Florin Curta: p. 12

% Printed on
recycled paper

On the Cover:
Marketing PhD student Qiong Wang prepares to teach her Sales Management class. Wang takes
courses through UF's Academic Spoken English program. See page 6.

CLASnotes February / March 2003

page 2

Each year, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
awards CLAS Term Professorships to outstanding faculty
who excel in both scholarship and teaching. These pro-
fessorships allow the college to recognize faculty who
are making a significant difference in the classroom, as
well as through their research. Funded entirely by private
sources, the number of term professors and the amount
of the award varies from year to year. For 2002-2003,
six CLAS Term Professors have been selected, and they
will receive a one-time $6,000 salary supplement and an
additional $5,000 for their research.

Announcing the

2002-2003 CLAS

Term Professors

James Button,
Political Science
Mitchell Magid Term
Professor
James Button special-
izes in the politics of
social change, including
minority and urban
politics. He teaches
courses on politics and poverty, minori-
ties and change, gay and lesbian politics,
urban politics and the politics of race and
gender. Button is working on a research
project investigating black employment and
affirmative action in the South and recently
published the book The Politics of Youth, Sex
and Health Care in American Schools through
Haworth Press.

Christopher Stanton,
Physics
st Jean and Robin Gibson
Term Professor
Christopher Stanton
specializes in theoreti-
cal condensed matter
physics. He teaches a
broad range of courses,
including applied physics, introductory solid
state physics, optics and statistical mechanics.
His research involves theoretically calculating
and modeling the electronic, transport and
optical properties of bulk and quantum con-
fined semiconductors. He recently published
the book chapter "Theory of Coherent Pho-
non Oscillations in Bulk GaAs," in Ultrafast
Phenomena in Semiconductors.

Anthony Oliver-Smith,
S A nrlr. .p..l.. '
Mitchell Magid Term
Professor
Anthony Oliver-Smith
specializes in both
socio-culture and socio-
economic bases of natu-
ral and technological
disasters and development-induced displace-
ment and resettlement. He teaches courses on
racial and cultural minorities, the people of
the Andes, economic inrl...p. ...;-,, environ-
ment and cultural behavior, rural peoples in
the modern world, the transition to capital-
ism, and change, crisis and social reconstruc-
tion. Oliver-Smith is involved in a research
study of eight nations that were affected by
El Nifio and recently published the book
Catastrophe and Culture: The A .-'. ...:... of
Disaster through SAR Press.

Daniel Talham,
Chemistry
Jean and Robin Gibson
Term Professor
Daniel Talham special-
izes in hybrid organic
and inorganic materi-
als with organic and
inorganic interfaces. He
teaches general chemistry, inorganic chem-
istry and a graduate course he developed in
materials chemistry. He is involved in two
research projects, one developing new light-
weight magnets, and the other, studying how
organic interfaces can be used to template
inorganic objects. Talham has published three
articles this year and has one in press for Kid-
ney International entitled "Presence of Lipids
in Urine, Crystals and Stones: Implications
for the Formation of Kidney Stones."

Malini Johar Schuel-
ler, English
Waldo W Neikirk Term
Professor
Malini Johar Schueller
specializes in Ameri-
can literature, Asian-
American literature and
postcolonial studies. In
addition to her research on 19th and 20th-
century American literature, Schueller teaches
courses on issues of empire, race and con-
temporary US women of color. Her recent
anthology, Messy Beginnings: Postcoloniality
and Early American Studies, will be published
this year by Rutgers University Press.

Manuel Vasquez,
Religion
Waldo W Neikirk Term
Professor
Manuel Vasquez spe-
cializes in religion and
social sciences, with
an emphasis on Latin
America and US Lati-
nos. He teaches courses on Latin American
religions, religion and globalization, and the
implications of modernism and post-modern-
ism on contemporary religious life. Vasquez is
working on a research project that brings an
interdisciplinary team of scholars from Gua-
temala, Mexico and Brazil to Florida to con-
duct ethnographic research on immigrants
from those countries. His book, Globalizing
the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas, will be
published in 2003 by Rutgers.
-Buffy Lockette

CLASnotes February / March 2003

page 3

fULBRIGHT
FM..A Faculty

A Letter From Abroad
Every year UF faculty and students receive Fulbright awards to teach, conduct research and learn in
more than 140 countries around the world. This year, UF nominated 59 students for the award, almost
three times as many as last year. Nineteen of these students have been selected to be reviewed by
their host country. They will find out about their official selection this summer.
Nearly 200 UF faculty have received a Fulbright award during their academic careers. The UF Inter-
national Center maintains a list of awardees on its Web site at www.ufic.ufl.edu/fulbright/fulblist.htm.
Last summer, Political Science Professor Richard K. Scher received a Fulbright Distinguished Chairs
Program Award for the 2002-03 academic year. The award is among the most prestigious appoint-
ments in the Fulbright program. Scher has lived in Hungary since last fall, and below is an article he
has written about his experiences as a Fulbright scholar.

Since mid-August of 2002. I have had the privilege of serv-
ing as a Fulbright visiting scholar in Hungary, while occu-
pying the John Marshall Distinguished Chair of American
Government for that country.
During the fall semester I taught three undergradu-
ate classes at Debrecen University located in Debrecen, a
Calvinist city of 300,000 (in a primarily Roman Catholic
country) in the far eastern corner of Hungary, near the bor-
ders of Romania and the Ukraine. All classes, fortunately,
were in English. Those courses were on political cam-
paigning (happily, major political campaigns took place in
Hungary during the fall) and American political culture as
portrayed by the media. I also taught a presidency course in
the political science department.
Regardless of the course titles, one of the most impres-
sive aspects of teaching in Debrecen has been the students'
curiosity about the US. Some have visited America, but
most have not. All have read a good deal about us, and of
course the influence of American television is all pervasive.
They wanted to know everything: Is it safe to walk on the
streets? Why does Mr. Bush ignore European opinion about
war with Iraq? Has the rapper Eminem ever come to UF?
They were concerned if they compare favorably to
students at UE I reassured them on that point: aside from
speaking Hungarian outside of class instead of English,

they looked, dressed, talked and behaved just like UF
undergrads, and had the same interests. And there are just
as many empty pizza boxes and beer cans, per square foot,
on the campus in Debrecen as in Gainesville! However,
they do smoke more than UF students; indeed, smoking
in Hungary is part of the national culture and extremely
widespread in spite of new government programs aimed at
reducing it.
Serving as the Marshall Chair also allows me the
opportunity to talk formally and informally about political
life in the United States. I have made a number of pre-
sentations on politics in America (including two with UF
Professor of Political Science Aida Hozic when she visited
in November) and engaged in a number of impromptu
discussions with faculty and students. One of the most
intriguing presentations came in early December, when
another Fulbright scholar and I were asked to explain the
Thanksgiving holiday to faculty and students.
But the best feature of serving as the Marshall Chair is
the chance to meet extraordinary people I would never have
had the opportunity to know otherwise; this includes other
Fulbright scholars, academics from other countries and of
course Hungarian scholars and students. The range of my
friends and colleagues and students here is both staggering
and breathtaking. I am totally convinced that I am learning
much more from them than they are from me.
And I have the opportunity to immerse myself in
Hungary's 1,100 year-old culture, history and traditions.
In itself, this is worth the occasional inconveniences and
disruptions any Fulbright scholar encounters. Yes, I have
gotten homesick. But memories-standing on the Margit
Id in Budapest looking at the magnificent Parliament build-
ing and at St. Stevens Basilica, walking along cosmopolitan
Andrassy ut (Budapest's version of Fifth Avenue) or eating
delicious food in restaurants frequented only by locals-
somehow these irreplaceable memories will have to stand
me in good stead as I search for a parking spot at UF upon
my return.
-Richard K Scher

CLASnotes February / March 2003

page 4

Research Abroad

Chemistry Undergraduates

Experiment in France

Growing up in rural Brooksville, deep in Florida's "orange country," Jessica Hancock never had the opportunity to see much
of the world. As a participant in the chemistry department's Research Experience for Undergraduates, she recently spent three
months at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris gaining valuable international research experience. "I now have a wide
background," says the chemistry senior, who is being heavily recruited by graduate schools. "It's given me a foot in the door
because I now have so much more to offer."

Sponsored by the National Sci-
ence Foundation (NSF), the
Research Experience for Under-
graduates (REU) program funds
research opportunities for stu-
dents in the sciences by sending
them to host universities to
work closely with faculty on a
research project. Top students
are recruited from all over the
United States and sent to REU
labs for the summer. UF has
five REU programs, including
psychology and physics. What
makes the chemistry depart-
ment's program special is that
it is the only REU program on
campus that has an internation-
al component, sending students
to France since 1996.
"In the 1990s, the NSF
realized that undergraduates in
the US weren't getting enough
international research experi-
ence," says Randy Duran, asso-
ciate professor of chemistry and
the director of the chemistry
REU program. "We take really
strong students in the sciences
and send them to world-class
research labs in France-two
of them Nobel Prize-winning
labs-and they get treated like
graduate students. They have
the chance to see what graduate
research is like and also what
research is like in a foreign
country."
After one summer of train-
ing at the REU site at UF,
students are sent to laboratories

CLASnotes February / March 2003

in Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse,
Grenoble, LeMans, Lyon,
Mainz, Montpellier, Pau or
Strasbourg to work in chemistry
laboratories at top French uni-
versities.
Sarah Lane, now a UF
graduate student, spent the
summer of 2001 at the Uni-
versity of Pierre and Marie
Curie in Paris, working on an
inorganic chemistry project.
"The experience has made me
a stronger, more independent
person, which helps a great deal
in graduate school," Lane says.
"I learned that science is very
international. Every country
in the world is contributing to
chemistry, and it is important
to have an international per-
spective when
working with sci-
entists from other

countries."
In addition
to sending stu-
dents to France,
the UF chemistry
REU program has
the distinction
of being the only
REU program in
the nation that
also hosts foreign
students. Funded
by UF and the
French Minis-
try of Research,
French under-
graduate students

spend the summer living in
Gainesville and researching with
UF professors and American
REU students.
Florent Allais came to
UF from the University of
Bordeaux in 1999 to work
on a radical chemistry project
with chemistry professor Eric
Enholm. After finishing his
master's degree in France in
June 2000, he decided to return
to UF to pursue a PhD. "I
enjoyed just coming to the US
to discover a new culture and
a new way to work in the lab,"
he says. "I met new people and
made new friends."
Duran, who earned a PhD
from the University of Louis
Pasteur in Strasbourg in 1987,
R.. .,, .. ...

is also the associate director of
UF's France-Florida Research
Institute. He was responsible
for bringing the chemistry REU
program to campus and has a
strong interest in promoting
and developing international
research teams. "Randy wrote
a proposal, it underwent merit
review, and based on the quality
of the proposal it was accepted,"
says Robert Kuczkowski, an
NSF program officer. "NSF has
an interest in promoting global
undergraduate research, and
this met those needs. In other
words, he did a great job."
-Buffy Lockette

UF graduate student Sarah Lane spent the summer of 2001 researching inorganic chemistry at
the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris. She is pictured here on a visit to Notre Dame in
Paris.
page 5

Learning to be Udrstood

Academic Spoken English Program

Facilitates International Exchange of Ideas

UF marketing PhD student Qiong Wang says the thing she enjoys most about
teaching is feeling that she and her students are learning from each other.
"When I feel that the students are learning something that they are interested
in and feel hopeful about their career and life, I feel that I am doing something
valuable. I am also learning from my students in and outside the classroom."

.who is from China, is one of around 75-150
international students each semester who takes classes
through the Academic Spoken English (ASE) program,
which is part of UF's Research and Graduate Program
(RGP) and the C 11 of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The program was established in 1986 in response to
a Florida state statute that. : ,:: faculty mem-
bers and teaching assistants at state universities to be
proficient in the oral use of- i This proficiency
is determined by having potential teachers take the
SPEAK -. .. Proficiency F.. 1 1. ...: Kit)
or the TSE (Test of Spoken English) exam and earn a
satisfactory grade. Even though the program is housed
in the .... program in CLAS, the majority of its
:.... comes from RGP, and international students
from : 1: :- from it.
"Many of our students are from chemistry, phys-
ics, mathematics and engineering, but we teach stu-
dents from all over the university," says Gordon Tapper,
who first worked with the ASE program as a graduate
student in 1987. Now he coordinates the program and
teaches some of its courses. "UF has one of the old-
est and most comprehensive International 1...
Assistant (ITA) Tapper says. "We offer three
different ASE courses. ASE 2 is the class ITAs must
take if they receive a low score on the SPEAK or TSE
test and are also teaching. It's the course required by
the statute. The ITAs take this class the same semester
they are teaching their own course." There is also ASE
1, an introductory course that some students take
before ... : the SPEAK or TSE exam, as : as the
advanced course ASE 3, for students who want to fur-
ther improve their language and cultural i i
Chen is a mathematics PhD student
from Taiwan who is .' .. ASE 1 this semester. The
class meets three times each week in one of the lan-
guage labs on campus, and Chen says the 1 '..
exercises with other students help him with his pro-
nunciation. "I don't always know how to say certain
words. Even 1 people :me they can under-
stand what I am saying, I say that being understood is

different than .' .. ', "
Chen's ASE I instructor is John Bro, who also
has been affiliated with ASE since the late 1980s. Bro
and Tapper teach several of the ASE courses, along
with several i...... :.. .graduate students. In the ii
of 2002, more than 100 international students were
.. :: in the ASE courses. The : .. has grown
extensively since it began. "We started with one section
ofASE 2 made up of six or seven students," Bro says.
"This semester, there are seven sections with 10 to 12
students in each section. We could offer more sections
of each ASE course and add an ASE 4 and 5 because
there is that much of a demand for them. As UF's
international graduate student enrollment grows, ASE
needs to grow.
Another change arises out of technological advanc-
es with computers and video. use digital cameras
to videotape the ASE 2 students every other week
when they are teaching in their individual classes,"
Bro says. : -- we come back to our 'edit suite' and
upload the video to the Web, so the ASE students can
log on to our Web site and watch themselves teaching.
The ASE instructors then meet with the students and
S:: about the mistakes and progress they see.
... who is currently taking ASE 2 and teach-
ing Sales Management in the _.... : .. ( .i:. .i of
Business, says even though she is a bit nervous when
being taped, she realizes how valuable it is to see
teaching. "Sometimes I watch myself and think, 'Did
I really sound like that?' or 'I wasn't looking at the stu-
dent when he asked me the .: 'The ASE class
helps us identify the problems in our teaching, improve
teaching and communication ii. and be more pro-
fessional." Wang has designed a Web site for her class
that includes photos of her students, PowerPoint pre-
sentations and notes.
In addition to the video 1 '.. the ITAs see
their interaction with undergraduate students, it serves
another purpose. "John (Bro) is i ": an
online video database, where we are able to make
notes about the students we have recorded and provide

pLASnotes February / March 2003

page 6

details about them. Our
hope is that with student
consent, this informa-
tion can be utilized by
researchers who are work-
ing on projects related
to speech, linguistics and
other topics."
Bro is working on
a search engine compo-
nent that would allow a
potential researcher to
look for specific materi-
als in the database. "At
some point in the future
with Institutional Review
Board approval, a researcher at the University of Iowa,
for example, can access our database on the Web and
search for male Chinese students in chemistry to hear
their intonation patterns. We'll provide a one or two
minute audio clip of these speakers," Bro says. "The
field as a whole can benefit from the information we're
gathering here at UE"
The research component of the ASE is another
unique element ofUF's program. "Fortunately, we
were able to bring in a director of the ASE program
when linguistics faculty member Helena Halmari was
hired in 2001," Tapper says. With Halmari's arrival,
linguistics-related research has taken off.
"Practically everyone who is teaching with ASE
is involved with research projects on different aspects
of language in classroom teaching situations," Halmari
says. "However, our research not only benefits our own
students, both ITAs and their undergraduate students,
but it is filling important gaps in the knowledge of
cross-cultural communication in general and has theo-
retical implications. We present our research findings
at national and international conferences and publish
them."
Currently, Halmari is working on several projects,
including one she will present in March at the annual
meeting of the American Association for Applied Lin-
guistics. She and Jules Gliesche, an ASE lecturer, have
looked at the differences in how ITAs chat with the
undergraduate students in the classroom versus how
native English speaking TAs chat with them. "We are
finding that "small talk" between the ITAs and the
undergraduate students at the beginning of class when

students are walking in, may be missing or its nature may differ from the expected
American 'norm'," explains Halmari. "Small talk often helps in rapport building
with the students, and we are seeing examples of culturally more or less appropri-
ate instances of small talk, as well as an occasional complete lack of it. When these
interactions are analyzed, the knowledge we gain can be incorporated into teaching
how to carry out successful rapport-building small talk."
Many ITA programs do not have the funding to support research, according to
Tapper. "We consider ourselves to be in a very fortunate position to contribute to
the field," he says. "Another research project I'd like to explore is looking at the class-
room expectations of today's American undergraduate students because I think in
some ways we've lost touch with them. There was a study done about 12 years ago
at UCLA that looked at this, but students have changed a lot since then. Many want
course Web sites and online notes. I would love to repeat the study with today's UF
undergraduates."
Another idea the group thinks is worth exploring is how American undergradu-
ates could benefit from international students. Tapper, Bro and Halmari have devel-
oped a way for the two student groups to interact and learn from each other. "We
are proposing that ASE 3 students and undergraduate students in my Introduction
to Linguistics course this fall work together on a final project," Halmari says. "They
would research a linguistics topic such as Korean phonology, Chinese tones or Polish
consonant clusters, and each would earn a grade in their class."
Tapper's dream is to take things a step further at UF by encouraging and
rewarding undergraduates for increasing their contact with international students.
"IfUF required every undergraduate student to have 10 contact hours before gradu-
ation with an international student, UF graduates would be more cross-culturally
sophisticated and aware. It would be a valuable thing for everyone."
International students also want to step things up a notch. "Our students are
looking for us to help them become better," Tapper says. "We're seeing a much
savvier and culturally aware group of students who want to learn more than just
language skills." Bro agrees. "Our classes go beyond teaching remedial grammar and
pronunciation. These students have questions about culture, race, politics, you name
it. We not only teach them how to speak, but how to communicate."
-Allyson A. Beutke

CLASnotes February / March 2003

page 7

Around

the College

Mark Your Calendar
The Center for African Studies Presents the
2003 Gwendolen IV. Carter Lecture Series
Dynamics of Islam in Contemporary Africa will include talks about legal systems and pun-
ishment (shari'a law), democratization and religion, relations between Muslims and non-
Muslims, and national identity, and gender issues. All lectures will take place from
4-6 pm in the Kccne-Flint Hall auditorium, room 050, and the schedule is below.
February 21: Sudan-Asma Abdel Halim and Ismail H..': i ::
February 28: .. Soulaymane Bachir .. .. and Fatou Sow
March 21: '. .. -Ousmane Kane and FI- ..... : :. .
' .I 44: Farid Azzi and Saide Benhablyes
April 11: Tanzania-Leila Sheikh and second speaker to be announced

CAS and FFRI Host Writer-in-Residence from Senegal
The Center for African Studies and the France-Florida Research Institute will host
Boris Boubacar Diop, a: ......1 and author from Senegal, on February 24-March 7.
One of Africa's most provocative public intellectuals, Diop is a prize-winning writer whose
most recent novel on the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Murambi,, e livre ods ossements I
was included in the Zimbabwe Book Fair's list of the 100 Best African Books of the 20th
Century. He also has been instrumental in the development of a free and independent press
in his native -. as co-founder of the daily newspaper Suda, dubbed "the paper of the
people." Diop will be featured in the ::- i ... events:
February 24: Roundtable discussion: Retrospective on Rwanda: African Studies in the
Shadow of Genocide, 4-6 pm, 209 Emerson Hall
March 3: Roundtable discussion: African ....: in French: Texts and Contexts, 4-6 prm,
219 Dauer Hall
Fiona '.'. ... ..i... an associate professor .* ... and African and Asian languages
and literatures, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to trans-
late Diops recent novel from French to F. 1: !

Children and Violence Conference
UF's Center for Children's Literature and Culture and the Center for Children and the
Law will co-host the conference Children, Culture & Violence from March 20-21. The
conference will examine the zones in children's lives where violence occurs and its cultural
manifestations. Keynote speakers for the event include Geoffrey Canada, president of the
Centers for Children and Families in New York, Florida Chief Justice Harry Lee
Anstead, who has been a leader in improving the courts that serve Florida's children and
families, and Ntozake i UF visiting professor. Visit
for more information.

Career Resource Center
Offers Workshops for CLAS majors
Just for Liberal Arts and Sciences (The 405 Series)
A// workshops start at 4:05 pm in the CRC cissivom on the 1st
floor of the Reitz Union.
March 19 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: Careers in
the Non-profit Industry
9 Careers in the Government

So You Want to Work in Academia
All workshops start at 11:45 am in the CRC classroom.
March 4 Here We Go: ...... the Academic Job Search
March 18 Cover Letters and Correspondence for Academia
.': I 1 Academic Interviewing
April 8 Exploring Career Options Outside of Academia

Florida Frontiers Lecture Series Spring 2003
Celebrate 150 Years With Us! In honor of the University
of Florida's sesquicentennial celebration in 2003, CLAS
has organized a lecture series ': 1 ''.,: prominent
speakers and performers who lead the frontiers of modern
research. Visit www.clas.ufl.edu 150 for more information.
Lectures start at 7:30 pm.
February 26: Mikel Rouse, Award-Winning Composer
and Director, : : ..: Center for the -. :
Black Box Theatre, "Real Opera for Real People."
March 5: Laurence Alexander, Associate Professor of Jour-
nalism in UF's ( : of Journalism and Communica-
tions, ::: Center for the Arts, Black Box
Theatre, "A Test Case for Newsgathering: The c 0
Role of the Press.
March 19: Richard Professor of Comparative
Literature at Stanford University, Harn Museum of Art,
"Analytic Philosophy and Narrative Philosophy."
March 26: Speaker to be announced, Florida Museum of
Natural History.
April 2: Ellen Wartella, Dean of the University of Texas at
Austin ( : of Communication, Harn Museum of Art,
"Growing Up -. .i How Interactive Media Influence
Children's Development."
S... 9: Ntozake Shang6, Poet, T .. and .
Professor at UF, Harn Museum of Art, "Poetry: Do it
With a Stick."

Carnevale Conference
The Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere
and the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program,
with the support of the Department of Romance Lan-
guages and Literatures, present the conference In the
Wake of Carnevale: Ritual Wandering as a Prelude to
Paradise on February 24-26. Visit www.clas.ufl.edu/
Sfor more information or
392-2016, ext. 243.

Julia Kristeva Lecture Inaugurates
France-Florida Research Institute
The France-Florida Research Institute held its inaugural lecture on February 10 with
internationally known literary theorist and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva. Her talk, "Is
There a Female Genius?" focused on her recent three-volume publication, "Le G6nie
feminin" ("The Female Genius").
Kristeva is a professor of French literature and ... at the University of Paris VII,
Denis Diderot. As a' she :: with French semiotician Roland Barthes and
other prominent theorists in the influential Tel Quel group. Her ...i:' ... include texts
S. .. with semiotics, critical theory, psychoanalysis, religion, politics and other aspects
of contemporary society.
The inaugural lecture also brought several French visitors to campus, .... i.. the
Conseiller Culturel of the French Embassy, M. Jean-Rend Gehan, as i as Consul Gen-
eral (i : : i Bouchard and Cultural Attachee Victoire Di Rosa of the French
Consulate in Miami.

pLASnotes February / March 2003

page 8

DEPARTMENT NEWS
Anthropology
Irma McClaurin has been named to Choice Mag-
azine' list of "Outstanding Academic Titles: The
Best of the Best in Published Scholarship" for her
work Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory Praxis,
Politics and Poetics. The Choice list represents about
10 percent of the more than 6,600 works reviewed
and is highly regarded in the academic library com-
munity. Selection is based on overall excellence in
presentation, scholarship importance, relativity to
other literature in the field and originality of value.
Currently on leave from UF to serve as deputy
provost at Fisk University, McClaurin also has been
promoted to fellow status based on experience and
seniority by the Board of Directors of the Society
for Applied Anthropology.

Botany
Doctoral candidate Ashley Morris has received a
Canon National Parks Scholars Program award.
Morris and UF fisheries and aquatic sciences doc-
toral student Linda Grober-Dunsmore are among
only eight students from the US, Canada, Mexico,
Central and South America and the Caribbean to
receive $78,000 each for innovative research on
scientific problems critical to national parks.

Classics
Hans-Friedrich Mueller has received a research
and travel grant from Martin Luther University
in Halle, Germany, where he delivered lectures on
"Die naechtliche Ordnung im alten Rom" (Noc-
turnal Regulation in Ancient Rome) and "Ritus
und Moral bei Valerius Maximus" (Ritual and
Morality in Valerius Maximus).

Geological Sciences
The department presents the American Geophysi-
cal Union Chapman Conference, "Timescales
of the Geomagnetic Field," from March 9-11 in
honor of the 70th birthday of UF Distinguished
Professor Neil Opdyke. Opdyke has been at
UF since 1980 and is a member of the National
Academy of Sciences. The conference will provide
a forum for discussion of current controversies in
geomagnetic research.

History
The US Senate has unanimously confirmed Ste-
phen McKnight's appointment to the National
Council on the Humanities. He will participate in
a medal ceremony and attend council meetings in
Washington, DC at the end of February. Last fall,
President George W Bush nominated McKnight
to serve on the 25-person advisory board to the
National Endowment for the Humanities. The
Senate confirmed McKnight's nomination in Janu-
ary, making him the first person from UF to serve
on the council.

Mathematics
The department recently held the International
Conference on Galois Theory as part of the Special
Year in Algebra during 2002-03 to honor the 70th
birthday of Graduate Research Professor John
Thompson. Helmut Voelklein organized the con-
ference, which featured talks by leading researchers
around the world on the latest advances in Galois
Theory.

Physics
Senior Secretary Darlene Latimer received the
2002 Department of Physics Employee Excellence
Award. Latimer works with the graduate program
in the physics student services office. She received
a certificate and a $500 check. The new award will
be given annually to a staff member for outstand-
ing and meritorious service.

Religion
Several articles by Richard Hiers have appeared in
various journals recently, including "Biblical Social
Welfare Legislation: Protected Classes and Provi-
sions for Persons in Need" in the Journal ofLaw
and Religion; "The Spirit of Biblical Law" in Wash-
ington University Studies Law Review; and "Insti-
tutional Academic Freedom vs. Faculty Academic
Freedom in Public Colleges and Universities: A
Dubious Dichotomy" in the Journal of C,.,;,' and
University Law.

Romance Languages and Literatures
Assistant Professor of French Sylvie Blum pre-
sented the paper "The Elusive Search for Nora
Luca: Tony Gatlif's Adventures in Gypsy Land" at
the Modern Language Association's annual conven-
tion in New York in late December.

Sociology
The Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities of
the American Sociological Association has recog-
nized Joe R. Feagin, by naming the Feagin Distin-
guished Undergraduate Student Paper Award in his
honor. Students can be nominated or self-nomi-
nate their papers by March 15. Visit www.asanet.
org/sectionrem/awards.html for more information.

Scholarship Finalists
Two CLAS students are nationwide finalists for the 2003
Harry S. Truman Scholarship. Political science majors
Valerie Lynch and Teresa Porter are each vying for one
of the 75 to 80 awards, which recognizes college juniors
with exceptional leadership potential who are committed
to careers in government, non-profit or advocacy sectors,
education or public service. More than 200 finalists were
selected nationally from 144 institutions, and only six stu-
dents represent the state of Florida as finalists.
The Truman Foundation provides a $30,000 merit-
based grant to assist recipients in graduate school. The
foundation will announce the winners on March 21.

Undergraduate Political Science Stu-
dents Launch Online Journal
The Department of Political Science welcomes the inaugural
issue of the International Review-a student-run, student-
edited quarterly undergraduate journal of international
affairs. The online publication provides a forum for debate
across campus and the state concerning international issues
of today that have the potential to shape the future. Visit
web.polisci.ufl.edu/UF_Review to read the first issue.

CLAS Teachers/Advisors of the Year
CLAS has 11 college-level teaching and advising award winners for 2002-03. The awards
recognize excellence, innovation and effectiveness in either teaching or advising. Nominations
were collected from students, faculty, department chairs and administrators.

Teaching Awards
Darragh Devine, Psychology
James Horvath, Chemistry
Benjamin Karney, Psychology
Ido Oren, Political Science
Brian Ward, History

Advising Awards
Selman Hershfield, Physics

Robert Hatch, History
Konstantinos Kapparis, Classics
David Metzler, Mathematics
Sergei Pilyugin, Mathematics

Kathy Rex, Academic Advising Center

Hatch and Rex have been nominated for the university-wide Teacher and Advisor of the Year
Awards, which will be announced in April.

CLASnotes encourages letters to the editor. E-mail editor@clas.ufl.edu or send a
letter to CLASnotes, PO Box 117300, Gainesville FL 32611. CLASnotes reserves
the right to edit submissions for punctuation and length.

Read CLASnotes online at http://clasnews.clas.ufl.edu

CLASnotes February / March 2003

page 9

Grants In the News

Physics Professors Receive CAREER Grants
T he National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded two assistant physics pro-
Sfessors with a $450,000 grant through the organization's CAREER program.
Yoonseok Lee and Stephen Hill each will receive $90,000 a year for the next five
e years to support their research in the field of physics.
"It is hard to describe how overjoyed I feel," Hill
says. "This grant rewards many years of incredibly
hard work and is a tremendous help. It will provide
student salaries, materials and supplies, and fund a
much needed summer salary for the next five years
so that I may focus on research and research-oriented
education."
S Hill's research focuses on the use of electron mag-
Stephen Hill netic resonance spectroscopy to study the characteris-
tics of molecule based materials. He will work closely
with chemistry professor George Christou during the project.
Lee's award was based on his research proposal, "Nature of Pure and Dirty Liq- a
uid 3He." "This award supports our research on the fundamental nature of pure and Yoonseok Lee
dirty liquid helium three," Lee says. "This unique property allows us to study the
property of liquids at extremely low temperatures." He will work with colleagues at Northwestern University.
Both Hill and Lee came to UF in 2001.
-Kimberly A. Lopez

UF Receives Ford Grant to Fund Interdisciplinary
Study of Latino Immigrant Communities
U F has received $550,000 from the Ford Foundation to conduct interdisci-
plinary research concerning the interaction between religion and politics in
Florida's Latino communities. The project, "Latino Immigrants in Florida: Lived
Religion, Space and Power," will be coordinated by Associate Reli ion Professor
Manuel Vasquez and Political Science Professor Philip
Williams and is based at the Center for Latin Ameri-
can Studies.
"A key goal is to link theory and practice, bringing
innovative scholarship in the study of religion and
society into debates about immigration and global-
ization in a state that has become a bellwether for
national changes," Williams said.
Philip Williams The research team will explore the role religion
plays in migration trajectories and transnational
experiences among Brazilians, Mexicans and Guatemalans in Florida. Furthermore,
multinational research will focus on building detailed accounts of social, cultural and
religious life in US immigrant communities. Manuel Vasquez
Kimberly A. Lopez

Read the full grants listing at http:// clasnews.clas.
ufl.edu/news.shtml in this month's issue of CLAS-
notes online.

CLASnotes February / March 2003

page 10

Bookbeat Bacchic Medicine BacchicMedicine
Wine and Alcohol Therapies
Wine and Alcohol Therapies
Recent publications from Napoleon to the French Paradox 64

from CLAS faculty

History Professor Harry W.
Paul, author of Bacchic
Medicine (Rodopi).

Amazon Sweet
Sea: Land,
Life and Water
at the River's
Mouth
Nigel Smith
(Geography)
University of
Texas Press

So rich is this
biological
treasure house
that early European explorers deemed it
inexhaustible. In this highly readable book,
Nigel Smith explores how human use of the
Amazon's estuary's natural resources has been
affected by technological change, rapid urban
growth and accelerated, market integration.
His findings underscore the importance of
understanding the history of land use and the
ecological knowledge of local people when
formulating development and conservation
policies. The book will be of interest to every-
one concerned with the fate of tropical for-
ests, conserving biodiversity and developing
natural resources in a sustainable manner.
-Book jacket

ineteenth century Europe did not pro-
claim the "apple a day" adage, but could
a glass of wine a day keep the doctor away?
"The ancient Greeks probably had it
right-a little wine a day, with meals, is good
for you," says Harry W Paul, history professor
emeritus. "It is good for the body and mind,
not only as a preventive measure but perhaps
as a cure for some diseases." With scientific
and historical research to back his conclusion,
Paul presents the age-old debate over alcohol
as medical treatment in his new book, Bacchic
Medicine.
For his research, Paul spent time in the
libraries and archives of Paris and in France's
major wine cities-Bordeaux, Dijon and
Reims. Medical documentation was found
in famous medical journals, such as The New
England Journal of Medicine. "That's what his-
torians do, right? Look at a bunch of old stuff
nobody else wants to look at," Paul says.
The topic of wine and alcohol came
to Paul through his study of the history of

Projecting
History: Projecting
German History
Nonfiction G r onfition Cinema,
Cinema, 1967- 1967-2000
Nor M. Atr
2000
Nora M. Alter
(Germanic and
Slavic Studies)
University of
Michigan Press

Between 1967
and 2000, film production in Germany
underwent a number of significant trans-
formations, including the birth and death
of New German Cinema as well as the
emergence of a new transnational cinematic
practice. Nora M. Alter explores the relation-
ship between German cinematic practice and
the student protests in both East and West
Germany against backdrops of the Vietnam
War, terrorism in West Germany in the sev-
enties, West Germany's rise as a global power
in the eighties, and German reunification in
the nineties.
-Book jacket

CLASnotes February / March 2003

science and par-

ticularly through
writing his 1996
book, Science,
Vine and Wine in A
Modern France. 4w y w
Though he HarryW.Paul
had focused on
France for so long, Paul was intrigued to learn
that alcohol and wine therapies were more
important historically in Great Britain.
Challenges to the idea of moderate con-
sumption of alcohol, however, have produced
heated medical debates despite evidence of
wide historical acceptance of its benefits.
"The benefit of drinking a moderate amount
of wine with a meal is now accepted as a
perfectly reasonable argument, backed up by
clinical and epidemiological studies. So, we
seem to have arrived back at the medical wis-
dom of the Hippocratic teachings."
-Kimberly A. Lopez

The Presidency,
Congress and
Divided
Government
Richard S.
Conley (Political
Science)
Texas A&M
University Press

Can presidents
hope to be effec-
tive in policy
making when Congress is ruled by the other
party? Conley argues persuasively that the
conditions of "divided government" have
changed in recent years, and he applies a
rigorous ir, rl'.....1...', that allows the test-
ing of a number of important assumptions
about party control of the legislative process
and the role of the president. Scholars of the
presidency and those interested in the larger
American political process will find in this
book both food for thought and a model of
analytic sophistication.
-Book jacket
Conley recently edited Reassessing the Reagan Presi-
dency and authored Florida 2002 Elections Update.
page 11

The

Presi-dency
Cogrs

Archaeological

Summer School

Digs Deep
Summer days of being buried in beach sand is nothing but child's play for
Assistant History Professor Florin Curta and those who enroll in his medi-
eval archaeology course. Their summer days instead will be filled with digs and
excavations of an early medieval site in Transylvania, Romania.
Ten students will have the opportunity this summer to travel with Curta
to Lazuri, Romania and explore the 7th- to 8th-century settlement. Located
just a few miles from the Romanian-Hungarian border, the site is associated
with important events including the destruction of the Avar qaganate by Char-
lemagne's armies in 791-795.
"I believe the course reflects a variety of cultural experiences," Curta says.
"The course targets students interested in heritage and the relationship between
archaeology and nationalism."
The archaeological summer school travels to different locations each year.
In 2002, the students traveled to Longford, Ireland where they searched for
clues to determine the age of the town of Granard. The trip garnered attention
from Irish media and was featured in several newspapers.
Besides the excavation in Lazuri, the archaeological summer school also
will visit neighboring sites in Carei-the site of a 6th-century cemetery and
8th-century castle-as well as some of the most important sites of medieval
architecture, including the fortified churches of central Transylvania, the medi-
eval towns of Sighisoara and Brasov, and the Hunyadi castle in Hunedoara. The Clonmacnoise monastery in County Offaly, Ireland, was founded
Visit Curta's Web site at www.clas.ufl.edu/users/fcurta/Lazuri.html for by St. Ciaran in 545 or 547, but the the South Cross and Round Tower
more information. pictured above are much older, dating back to the late 9th and early
rlyA. L z 10th century. Clonmacnoise is one of the most important monuments
of medieval architecture in Ireland.

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