Conflict and war cost the lives millions of people world wide with millions more injured and forcibly displaced and becoming refugees or internally displaced in their own countries. War and conflicts result in failed states characterized by poverty, disease and gross violations of human rights. The United Nations through the Security Council bears the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in the world. It is actively involved in resolving conflicts and rebuilding failed states. It does this through the process of peace keeping and works towards preserving peace, however, frangible where fighting has been halted and assists in peace building that is in implementing peace agreements achieved by the peace makers and works towards the return of the refugees to their homes and the reintegration of ex combatants in society. The nature of peace keeping operations has evolved rapidly in recent years, and the established principles and practices of peace keeping responded flexibly to new demands. Yet peace keeping operations have been a mixture of failures (Rwanda, Somalia) and successes (Mozambique, East Timor). In my talk I will examine the question whether there is a crisis in peacekeeping. I will further look at the conditions necessary for successful peace keeping, the role of external actors, the reintegration of combatants and refugees into society. The challenge in peacekeeping is always one of how to aid in the creation of a capable state one in which peace and security are guaranteed over a sustained period. Without peace, there can be no development and without development the risks of war, disease and refugees and displacement are substantially increased.

The changing images of Latin American art include a wide range of dramatic colors. Stark photographs by Mario Algaze capture the play of strong light and shadow and contrast with the richly colored textiles from Guatemala, contemporary paintings and sculptures. Although the changing images of Latin America are the subjects of this exhibition, the continuity of the art and the blurring of cross influences and traditions are also evident.

The exhibition includes objects from 500 A.D. to the present and a vast geographic region including Central America, South America and North American urban centers like Chicago and Miami, Florida. The various art forms represented are West Mexican ceramic sculpture, photographs by Mario Algaze, Guatemalan textiles, jewelry, molas and various folk arts.

Hernando de Soto will speak about the importance of establishing legal land titles for residents in developing areas. He will argue that the poor have assets, but that these assets are not easily traded due to the lack of land titles. If legal titling is established, he argues, a number of benefits will result, including job creation, less homelessness, higher school enrollments, increased political participation, better tax collection and less dependence upon foreign capital. De Soto supports his arguments with the results of a $77 million dollar World Bank project conducted in the 1990s, which resulted in a net benefit of $9.4 billion dollars.

Despite the fact that the Caribbean was the first area successfully colonized by Europeans, few people among the general public have even the basic knowledge of its ancient history. This talk presents a general overview of the ancient history of this region, emphasizing cultural, social, economic, and demographic aspects, from the first inhabitants to the first European colonizers. The presentation includes empirical information and brief discussions on the main questions and debates addressed by Caribbean archaeologists.

This presentation will critique the dialogue between place-specific and international influences in the work of contemporary Brazilian artists. Looking at fine art, indigenous and popular art traditions, Bastos will outline multifaceted dimensions of Brazil's contemporary culture. Departing from her own experiences as a native of Southern Brazil, she will contextualize Brazilian art production in terms of the country's history, economic and political development, and ethnic origin.

Dr. Partridge will be speaking on the humanitarian consequences of civil war in Colombia.
This presentation is part of the Center for American and World Cultures’ 2004 lecture series entitled “Homeless in the World: A Global Crisis.”

Exile Diaspora and identity have defined human experience, especially in the 20th century, often called the century of refugees. In her lecture, Dr. Agosín will speak about the meaning of identity and belonging, the importance of keeping one’s mother tongue, as well as the liberating possibilities that travel offers in these uncertain times. “Cartographies” explores the golden possibilities of travel as a way of understanding otherness, foreignness and, mostly, ourselves. She will also speak about her own experience as a Chilean exile.

Her “Cucas/Paper Doll Series” will be on exhibit in the Hiestand Gallery during the month of October, and she will give a lecture on her work.

Ms. Fernández explains that,

“…The Cucas/Paper Doll Series confronts…feelings of vulnerability, rage, powerlessness, and loneliness…They try to project upon situations, and circumstances that could happen to any woman growing up. Each work is an attempt to create a story about this, to establish a visual form of communication of what my personal relationship to the world is. Paper dolls and photographs from my childhood, lace, embroidery, weaving and basketry all come together in a synthesis of textured studies of skirts, blouses and garments. Texture is “painted” with machine and hand stitches, for sewing is firmly associated with personal memories of my grandmother and all those women who brought me up. Each Cuca celebrates my cultural identity and experiences of emotional struggle as a child. These are small works, built upon layers of materials that invite the viewer to take the time to investigate and unravel their meaning.

My work, however, is not localized to women’s craft but rather expands and takes ownership of materials and scale that at one time were considered part of the male domain…”

 

There are more people enslaved today than at any other time in human history. Within the past five years, the issue modern slavery has gone from being virtually undetected and ignored to becoming a burgeoning cause celebre. In the United States, politicians from both political parties, government agencies, faith communities, social service providers and the mass media have highlighted in particular the issue of human trafficking, the modern-day slave trade. Human trafficking has been brought to the American public eye through high profile venues including all the major newspapers, primetime TV news magazine shows, top-rated talk shows, and recently, various public statements by President Bush, including during two addresses to the United Nations General Assembly.

What is going largely unnoticed, however, is that Americans are supporting slavery every day through the products they buy. Slave-made goods are illegal in the United States, yet they constantly cross American borders and make their way into American homes. In the next wave of consumer campaigning and corporate social responsibility, consumers and the anti-slavery movement are now calling for full transparency in product supply chains, for ‘slave-made goods’ to be available for consumers and for slavery to be rooted out at its source, regardless of where it is occurring. University students are at the forefront of this next chapter of the anti-slavery movement, whose mantra is that “Slavery is too high a price to pay for cheap goods.”

Dr. Cummins has spent over a dozen field seasons in Costa Rica. He will speak about current Costa Rican environmental concerns including land use, species loss, deforestation, conservation and climate change in this tiny Central American country.

The forum will begin with short talks by Josiah Heyman, Altagracia Sanchez and Baldemar Velasquez, followed by brief statements prepared by representatives of various student groups including Students for Social Justice, College Republicans, College Democrats, Latin and American Students, Black Students Association, Business Students Associations, and others. The second half of the event will be a forum involving questions and comments from the audience and responses by invited speakers and student group representatives.

Josiah Heyman’s talk is titled Inside-Out: Connecting U.S. Immigration/Host Community Issues with U.S. Relationships with Latin America
Altagracia Sanchez’s talk is: Coming of Age in Two Worlds: Caribbean Immigrant Youth and Minority Activism in the U.S.
Baldemar Velasquez’s talk is titled Remembering the Alamo: Latino Perspectives on Immigration, Presidential Politics, and U.S. Economic Imperatives

This talk Iberianizes the Puritans of early-modern Massachusetts. Cañizares-Esguerra argues that like their Iberian cousins to the South, the Puritans wholeheartedly embraced knightly and crusading discourses of Reconquista. The enemies of the Puritan, to be sure, were the Indian "Moors," but more important, the Devil himself. According to this view, the Devil had allegedly enjoyed absolute sovereignty over the American continent for some 1,500 years. Iberians and Puritans arrived in the New World with the mission of driving Satan out of the continent, engaging therefore in a long-lasting war of attrition. Among Satan's minions in the continent there stood a host of demons in the landscape and nature. Demons had control over America's weather (causing lightening and storms during Atlantic crossings), plants (creating poisonous plants), and animals (possessing animals, snakes in particular). Cañizares-Esguerra studies early modern European perceptions of the American landscape both in Iberia and British America and finds these two sensibilities toward nature remarkably similar. In fact the entire Puritan discourse of the "wilderness" and the "City of the Hill" are hardly original. They were all derivative from much earlier Iberian colonizing discourses. Cañizares-Esguerra’s talk is part of his forthcoming book Toward a Wider Atlantic: Nature Narratives and Identities, 1500-1900 to be published by Stanford in 2005.

Hefner Lecture: “Beyond Tarzan and Jane: New Perspectives in the Emerging Field of Forest Canopy Research”
The field of forest canopy research - the world of rainforest treetops -has produced new tools for access and measurement. The use of experimental approaches, satellite imagery, and computer visualizations has opened our eyes to the important functions of the forest canopy in maintaining diversity, stabilizing global climate, and providing sustainable resources for humans. Worldwide efforts are now underway to document this previously unknown world of our planet.
The Hefner Lecture was established in memory of Robert A. Hefner, former professor and chair of the Department of Zoology. Presented by the Department of Zoology and the Hefner Zoology Museum, the Lecture enjoys co-sponsorship from across the University, including the Center for Environmental Education and Natural History, the Department of Botany and the Center for American and World Cultures, among others. For more information on the Hefner Lecture, contact Lisa Rosenberger at the Hefner Zoology Museum at 529-6086.

Technical lecture: “Development of the Research Ambassador Program to Disseminate Science to Non-Scientists: Case Studies from Forest Canopy Research”
Disseminating research results to the general public is a critical part of the scientific process, but academic researchers are often unrewarded for these efforts. Dr. Nadkarni describes a new program to provide incentives for scientists in all fields to communicate their results to non-traditional audiences. She focuses on case studies from the field of forest canopy research, particularly the effects of global climate change on epiphyte communities of tropical cloud forests.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Environmental Education and Natural History and the Department of Botany.

Most Americans are familiar with popular images of their country as a nation of immigrants, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. Few realize that vast international migrations have contributed to the building of many other modern nations. Argentina, France, Australia, Canada and Switzerland have all, at times had higher proportions (if not absolute numbers) for foreigners in their midst. Why has the U.S., almost alone among modern nations, so highlighted immigration in its tales of nation-building? Can it provide a model of cultural pluralism for other nations around the world?

Professor Bathrick's lecture will explore the Nazi construction of Chaplin as a Jew in the Third Reich, taboos about comedy, and the politics of American isolationism in the 1930s and 1940s.

David Bathrick, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Theatre, Film &Dance and German Studies at Cornell University, has published more than 60 articles and book chapters on modem German literature, cinema, politics, and theory. His most recent book The Powers of Speech: The Politics of Culture in the GDR (U of Nebraska Press, 1995) received the German Studies Association/ DAAD Book of the Year Prize in 1996. Professor Bathrick is a co-editor and co-founder (1973-) of New German Critique, the premier joumal of German Studies in North America. His current book project, Rescreening
the Holocaust, explores Holocaust cinema from 1940 through the early 1970s.

Dr Clyde Snow is a leading forensic anthropologist. He holds degrees from New Mexico Military Institute (Roswell), New Mexico University, Texas Technical University, and a PhD in anthropology from University of Arizona. He began his career with the Civil Aero Medical Institute (CAMI) as an examiner of wrecked planes.
In 1985 Dr. Snow provided forensic evidence that helped an Argentine court bring paramilitary members involved in the 1970s murders of nearly 20,000 Argentine citizens to justice. He later headed a team of forensic experts identifying human remains of over 200,000 Guatemalan citizens killed in its protracted 36-year civil war, and has worked in almost every country in Latin America and many others around the world. His work is painstaking because the murder victims lack important information such as medical records necessary for such a mission. Dr. Snow is one of the chief advisors at the Institute for International Criminal Investigations. He is affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Commission and involved with Americas Watch.

Bogard will compare what constitutes homelessness in the United States with the phenomenon in other countries and examine where this era of homelessness comes from and how homelessness is dealt with here and abroad. The presentation will also explore American individualism and how long-held values about poverty and work influence the ways in which we deal with the problems of homelessness. As America's poorest of the poor, homeless people face a world of increasingly complex economic realities and narrowing choices. What role should citizens and their government play in assisting homeless people's survival?

Please click here to read the complete paper.

“Refugees in Ohio”

Who is a refugee and where do refugees come from? How are they resettled in the United States? Who provides assistance? In this presentation, Walker will examine these and other questions pertaining to the problems and obstacles faced by refugees with special attention to Ohio. Successful resettlements will also be discussed.

According to Whitehead, housing is a human rights issue; everyone is entitled to stable, comfortable, and safe housing. In this presentation, Whitehead will provide action strategies that will provide for: greater housing assistance in urban, suburban, and rural areas, emergency rental assistance for families facing eviction, stable housing for schoolchildren, and greater housing assistance for the elderly, disabled, veterans, and individuals with HIV/AIDS. He will also discuss various measures to guarantee and expand economic and health security to the homeless, as well as provisions to insure that patients and other high risk individuals do not return to homelessness.

“Border Crossings: Diaspora, Environment and Homelessness of the ‘Other’ ”

If a local or cultural identity is defined by a set of shared ideals, values and beliefs, which determine a way of looking at the world, then it is also about shaping and regulating it through the establishment and defense of “territory”. Territorialization is the cultural process of regulating not only physical space, but social interaction as well. Laws, customs and territorial behavior are defenses against the “Other”, against the threat to personal security, self-esteem and self- and cultural-identity brought about by diversity and a perceived loss of control and power.

This presentation uses 19th/20th century German landscape painting, cognitive mapping, and digital photography to examine Germany as a case study to illuminate the ties between landscape and the built environment of cities and places to the manipulation and sustenance of exclusionary practices in politics, image making, history and cultural representations that are contributing to a growing number of “homeless” in the 21st century.

"A Hand is a Hand When It's Helping Someone"

Lonnie Holley, evicted from his home in Birmingham, Alabama, will speak about how is personal experiences of homelessness have influenced his art. A leading “outsider artist”, Holley’s first works of art were sandstone carvings. He now paints and makes assemblages from cast-off metal and various other found materials. He will tell his own story through images of his art. "My art is helping the mind to realize the depths to which we can go, and helping people in the first stage of learning how to help yourself, be yourself and love yourself."

"Forced Migration and Human Rights in the Middle East"

As a region beset by political instability and repression of opposition groups, widespread discrimination towards ethnic and religious minorities, and war and conflict, the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) is home to the largest numbers of refugees in the world. Significant flows of refugees and other forced migrants within MENA include Palestinians, Sudanese, Kurds, Lebanese, Yemenis, Iraqis, and Iranians. In addition, there have been huge numbers of refugees from Afghanistan to Iran. This presentation outlines some of the main flows and characteristics of forced migration in the MENA region in the context of changing international refugee policies, ongoing conflict and instability, shifting patterns of local and transnational practices, and the unresolved Palestinian question. I discuss region-specific challenges to addressing the vulnerability of refugees and other forced migrants in terms of the problem of Palestinian refugees, an overall lack of rights for non-citizens, the urban nature of the refugee situation in the region, and the transnational circumstances of most forced migrants today. The specific dimensions of vulnerability of forced migrants in MENA are characterized as relating to lack of ethnic and minority rights, gender insecurity, and poor support for children. The presentation highlights the ambiguous distinction between forced and voluntary migration from the Middle East, a human rights issue that is particularly relevant in light of the ‘war on terror’ discourse in North America, Europe, and Australia.

“Walking in Women’s Land: Lessons on Building North-South Solidarity from Chiapas, Mexico”

This talk explores transnational organizing for economic justice, human rights, indigenous sovereignty, and women's health and the tensions which emerge between grassroots movements, international actors, and NGOS in the context of Chiapas, Mexico. It identifies security as a multifaceted project with economic, political, social, health, cultural, gendered, and environmental dimensions, all of which are interconnected and embodied in indigenous organizing, accords, and worldview as collective rights and argues that security, in part, is forged through international and local NGO networking but fundamentally through grassroots movements which emphasize social justice, economic solidarity, democracy, and people-centered development. Activist ethnography and solidarity work inform the analysis of the case of Chiapas, Mexico, where threats to indigenous women's security are rooted in neoliberal development, systemic racism, and sexism. Such threats manifest themselves in poverty, political exclusion, and militarization. It is perhaps in the arena of women's health where the potentially lethal intersection of these forces is demonstrated most forcefully. To challenge militarization, globalization, and political exclusion, a vibrant, global, civil society movement has been created, north and south. Personal experience with women's transnational organizing and alliance building, models for solidarity, and key challenges to forming long term successful and sustainable relationships North and South are presented.

Click here for information about the Jolom Mayaetik Cooperative.

“RNA Interference: A New Tool Against Viral Agents of Bioterrorism”

With the increase in global travel and commerce and ever present threat of bioterroism, infectious diseases pose new threats to world survival. In the U.S, this is exemplified by the contamination of our postal service with anthrax, as well as the increase in the incidence of West Nile Virus infections.

The search for novel therapies for use against these infectious diseases is one means that we can thwart bioterrorism. The recent discovery of the evolutionarily conserved gene silencing mechanism of RNA interference (RNAi) has ushered in a revolution in the field of biology. Introduction of synthetic double stranded RNA molecules called short interfering RNA that have identical sequences to any specific gene triggers RNAi, which destroys the target RNA and silences gene expression. We are harnessing RNAi as a treatment strategy against West Nile, Dengue and and Japanese encephalitis, which belong to a family of mosquito-borne viruses called Flaviviruses. These viruses, which are classified as potential agents for bioterrorism can cause severe diseases with fatal complications such as encephalitis and hemorrhagic shock. We have identified several candidate siRNAs that attack gene sequences common to the three viruses. Our results show that these siRNAs are not only highly efficient at suppressing all three viruses in test tubes, they also prevent JE and WN encephalitis in mice. These results demonstrate the potential of RNAi in treating viral and genetic
diseases in humans.

The Nego Gato Music and Dance Ensemble has been bringing the soothing spiritual dances of Candomble, the acrobatic and explosive martial dances of Maculele and Capoeira and the festival that is Samba music to audiences throughout the United States for the past 20 years. Founded and led by Jose Sena, known professionally as Nego Gato (Black Cat), the Ensemble brings the energy and vibrancy of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, to Miami University and will leave audiences a little worldlier while dancing, laughing and having a good time in the spirit of a Brazilian party.

Beauty in Tragedy: Displaced Peoples of Western Africa A Photographic Essay by Stephen F. Heck

During the first semester of my first year at Miami in 2002 my older sister, who graduated from Davidson College in may of 2004, called me and told me that she had applied for a grant to go to Ghana and study the language problems among refugee populations, and asked if I would go with her. After agreeing the first thought that came into my mind was to photograph (a hobby of mine in high school) the trip, and try to capture the emotion and the beauty in the plight of the displaced peoples living in a UNHCR run refugee camp called Krisnan. For eight weeks, my sister and I were the only non-refugees living in a camp of 500 African refugees. We lived in a basic standardized housing unit sharing in the lives of the refugees. Upon my return to the US, I realized that I had an extremely unique opportunity, and that sharing my experiences was my obligation as a citizen of the world.

Founded in 1992, Mosaic is widely recognized as a national model for youth development through the arts, bringing together diverse young people from over 50 schools in Metro Detroit for professional artistic training and development. Mosaic's breathtaking all-youth theatrical and musical performances have toured throughout the country, including performances at the Kennedy Center and the White House, and to Europe, Asia and Africa. The Mosaic Singers, the musical branch of Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, have opened for Al Green, Pete Seeger and the Temptations. More than 95% of Mosaic alums have gone on to college. For more information call (313) 872-6910, or write Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit on the campus of University Prep High School - 610 Antoinette - Detroit, Michigan 48202. The phone number is (313) 872-6910 and the fax number is (313) 872-6920.

For nine years, Esera Tuaolo excelled in the N.F.L. as a defensive lineman: he played for five different teams and went to Super Bowl XXXIII with the Atlanta Falcons. He played with some of football’s greatest, including Brett Farve, John Randle and Jack Del Rio. He even sang the national anthem in uniform at a nationally televised Monday night game as a rookie and at the 1999 Pro-Bowl.
But as a gay man in the hyper-masculine culture of professional football, Tuaolo was forced to hide his sexuality. The secret crippled him, leading him to drink excessively and contemplate suicide. It also hindered his football achievements, as he felt that if he were too good a player, he would be exposed as a homosexual. He led a double life that deeply depressed him, but which he now looks back on with a new perspective. During this difficult time, he persevered by following his mother’s example and maintaining his strong spiritual faith.

David W. Haines was born in the United States in 1947 but moved with his family to Japan in 1957. His experience includes translator/interpreter and rural development specialist in Vietnam, graduate work in Southeast Asian Studies and Anthropology from the American University, working for the U.S. refugee resettlement program, and university teaching. Haines’ research interests lie in three general areas: the structures of kinship and locality (both in the United States and in Vietnam); the dynamics and problematics of contemporary migration; and the processes of governance. He has published widely in all three areas, and on the social implications of computerization, the distinctive mode of policy seen in the state-based workers' compensation program, the history of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, and the anthropological research on refugees, immigrants, and displacees.

Haines’ talk will explore how the American experience with refugees over the past sixty-five years has ranged from acceptance to rejection, from well-wrought program efforts to botched policy decisions, from humanitarian concerns to crass politics. All this makes a consideration of the American experience with refugees highly complex, but it is also makes it useful as a window on how morality, rationality, and expedience interpenetrate more broadly in American institutions, attitudes, and social interactions. This presentation offers an account of refugees and America that deals with these broader issues through an examination of the range of moral commitments Americans have toward refugees, the practical challenges faced in the domestic resettlement of refugees, and the broader lessons that emerge in considering the relationship between America and refugees. The starting point for the discussion is 1939 and the ending point 2004 a period of time that illuminates positive developments in U.S. refugee programs and also a continuing tendency to turn against refugees in times of political uncertainty. That latter tendency is especially clear in the sharp reduction in refugee admissions that occurred after September 11, 2001.

Check out these volumes that Haines edited on immigration

Illegal Immigration in America: A Reference Handbook by David W. Haines (Editor), Karen E. Rosenblum (Editor), 1999. Greenwood Press.

Manifest Destinies: Americanizing Immigrants and Internationalizing Americans
by David W. Haines (Editor), Carol A. Mortland (Editor), 2000. Praeger Publishers.

For more information:

ASIJ Libraries, David Haines Bibliography

Manifest Destinies

"Between Poverty and a Hard Place: Haiti's Environment and AIDS"

Health conditions in Haiti are among the worst in the world. All of Haiti's public health indices are poor, and it is not coincidental that Haiti has the highest incidence of HIV in the Americas. Health conditions are aggravated by structural violence, including lack of food and water--which, in turn, accelerates the progression of diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis. Haiti's destitute rural poor typically have no other options for survival than resorting to burning trees and harvesting the residual charcoal to sell at market. As land becomes increasingly exhausted and scarce, more and more peasants abandon agriculture for the lure of wage-labor in urban areas. But difficult living conditions in urban slums increase the risk of becoming infected with HIV, to be left untreated, and to return--sick with AIDS and unemployed--to the original rural setting.

To read Dr. Castro's article, Understanding and Addressing AIDS-Related Stigma: From Anthropological Theory to Clinical Practice in Haiti, please click here.

To read Pearls of the Antilles? Public Health in Haiti and Cuba, please click here.

"A Message on the Wind": Learning about Islam through Audio and Visual Materials

This presentation discusses the incorporation of visual and aural material into courses on Islam. Many people who are interested in learning about Islam find it useful to supplement textual material with audio and visual materials. This presentation, part of the morning session on these issues, will concentrate on the use of comic books, videos, and music cds. It will begin with an examination of how network television (which is often the sole information source for many of us) constructs Islam and Muslim lives. Since 9/11, many people have learned about Islam only through watching their televisions. However, network television news are concerned with ratings and viewer appeal, and unlike teachers, are not in the business of education. This presentation will be of interest to those who want to use other sources to learn about Muslims.

The Visual Subjugation of One Sex: The Invention and Exploitation of the Islamic Woman

For decades, the West has viewed advocates of Islam as being barbaric, violent and confrontational, particularly in its treatment of women. The custom of veiling and perceived "oppressive" position of women in Islam have come to be perceived as proof of the inferiority of Islam and the justification for the West to undermine Muslim religion and society.

The movie Not Without My Daughter was released just as the Gulf War was beginning. Without any previous major representations of Islamic religion available, this media perspective of Islamic life and culture circulated widely to a broad audience, reinforcing the narrow view of "civilized Americans" versus the "savage Middle Easterners" who oppress their women. This perspective continues to reinforce itself and will be demonstrated in such recent movies as Aladdin, Executive Decision, and Three Kings.

Considering that popular visual forms, such as popular film, television, and newspapers support prevalent attitudes, I wish to illustrate how popular culture's reflection on cultural stereotypes racializes and genders representations of Islamic life, culture and religion.

Muslims Online, Participant Webservation, and CyberIslam

Over the past decade thousands of websites have been created by and about Muslims. This new CyberIslam offers opportunities for Muslims to create virtual communities online, often along a sectarian path. Mainstream organizations are represented, but so are marginalized and even persecuted groups like the Ahmadiyya. A greater variety of viewpoints, including the most extremist, can be found online than in any other place. In the past year the internet has facilitated visual propaganda in the warfare of terrorism, whether made-for-video postings of beheadings or scenes of mosque destruction on al-Jazeera. Anthropologists, who traditionally conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Muslim societies cannot ignore the impact of cyberspace in defining what people think about Islam and how Muslims practice. But the creation of imagined and interactive virtual communities of Muslims also calls for a kind of participant webservation in which the “field” now comes to the researcher’s desktop.

Representations of/by Muslims in the U.S. Print Media

Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the media has been the leading force in increasing racism towards Muslims and Islam. Opinion polls show that Americans have a more negative opinion about Islam and Muslims now than shortly after 9/11. Television networks, such as Fox News, are the worst offenders in their reporting that creates the impression that radical Islam is the only interpretation of Islam. But even coverage on more mainstream networks, such as CNN, is also biased. For example, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is often reported primarily through an Israeli perspective. Newspapers also tend to highlight stories on Islam by focusing on suspects accused of terrorism-related crimes and the violence committed by Muslim extremists in the Middle East. Few articles are written about how the majority of Muslims live around the world. The result of this media bias has caused American Muslims to conclude they can never fully assimilate into American society and Muslims abroad to become anti-American and to protest U.S. government policies toward the Islamic world.

A professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University, Pedro Noguera is also an urban sociologist whose scholarship and research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment.
Pedro Noguera presents a dynamic and profound perspective on the issues of racial inequality and diversity in our schools. One of America's leading experts on education reform, he takes your audience through the challenges faced by schools and students trying to create a safe, secure, and academically rewarding environment. Noguera tackles problems such as race relations within schools, school violence, desegregation, and school vouchers. He demonstrates the problems America faces in providing equal opportunity in education, and provides some of the solutions that are working across America.
Described as a "very charismatic speaker of great oratorical gifts," Professor Noguera possesses the rare ability to translate social theory into concise, hip language with emotional impact. He inevitably captures both the minds and the hearts of his listeners.

"Investing in [children] is not a national luxury or a national choice. It's a national necessity. If the foundation of your house is crumbling, you don't say you can't afford to fix it while you're building astronomically expensive fences to protect it from outside enemies. The issue is not are we going to pay -- it's are we going to pay now, up front, or are we going to pay a whole lot more later on." Marian Wright Edelman

Founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), Marian Wright Edelman has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional career. Under her leadership, the Washington-based CDF has become a strong national voice for children and families. The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life with the support of caring families and communities. Learning from the example of her parents, Marian Wright Edelman has always fought for equality, freedom, and civil rights.

Do you know how many signers of the Declaration of Independence had disabilities? Who were they? How do we know or not know? Is the information purposefully hidden or simply unacknowledged? Is that good or bad? Please join us to explore these and other questions.

Robert Reid-Pharr is the author of numerous works including Conjugal Union: The Body, the House, the Black American (Oxford, 1999), and more recently, Black Gay Man (NYU, 2001) . His writing has appeared in Fuse, Afterimage, Gay Community News, The Washington Blade, New York Native and Outweek. He lives in Washington, D.C.

"A Table Before Me'" is a musical drama in one act created by Claudia Stevens for her one-woman performance as pianist/singer/actor. A performance tour de force, with Stevens playing a variety of characters, the piece conveys the terror and turmoil experienced by her mother's family during the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938. PBS/NPR reviewer Cathy Lewis called it "one of the most profound theater moments of recent times."

Ultimately a tribute to her mother's quiet courage and endurance, the piece concludes with Stevens taking her mother's place, "singing her" in the role of heroine denied to her sixty years earlier.

"A Table Before Me" has special significance in the present climate of anxiety over public safety and fear of "the enemy within." It is being presented widely -- under a variety of auspices -- to address and promote discussion of potential violation of personal freedoms in the pursuit of security.

Two major issues of North American historiography have been when the concept of “race” appeared, and what was its relationship to slavery. These questions raise both epistemological and methodological problems that might best be answered via an anthropological perspective. This paper argues that “race” and racism did not exist before the institutionalization of slavery, and that colonial North America had a window of opportunity to evolve as a “multi-colored” society but not a “multi-racial” one. The methodology requires examining the ethnographic evidence of actual relationships among populations we call races before the appearance of laws establishing slavery for Africans only. This evidence is compared with descriptions of relationships among blacks, whites, and Indians, after slavery, when all peoples were ostensibly again free.

The Hopi call them paiyakyamu, others from various Pueblos call them koshare, the sacred clown. To many American Indians the sacred clown provides a ritual of reversal, challenging the normal social and cosmic of things, reflecting the original chaos that preceded the creation of the world. The actions of the clowns may be seen as ritualistic or humorous, mocking and reverential. This presentation focuses on specific visual artists whose work seems to embody similar reversal rituals and messages. The power of the paintings depend on elements of surprise, humor, and social critique commonly found in the actions of sacred clowns. Professor Wheeler will show examples of typical work by several contemporary painters and discuss how they serve in the capacity of social koshares, sacred clowns.

Arias is an internationally known scholar, author, and screenwriter. His work in literary theory, criticism and Central American politics includes several publications on the Rigoberta Menchú controversy. From 2001-2003 Arias was president of the Latin American Studies Association. Arias has written 15 books, 38 journal articles, and 47 book chapters. Two-time recipient of the literature award Premio Casa de Las Americas, he has published 15 fictional pieces (many appearing in Spanish and English), and two film scripts. Arias will lead a discussion after the screening of the film El Norte, for which he wrote the screenplay.

Suggested Readings to prepare for Arias’ visit:

"We Thought it Was Only the Men They Would Kill" an article appropriate for undergraduate courses about the atrocities during the Guatemalan Civil War. (request copies from Susan Paulson).

John Sayles's movie "Men With Guns,” a fictionalized portrayal of Guatemalan civil strife.

Arias important critical book called Gestos ceremoniales, narrativa centroamericana 1960-1990.

The Tattooed Soldier, by Hector Tobar, a gripping novel about relations among Guatemalan immigrants in Los Angeles, on which Arias has worked.

Arias has published numerous powerful novels that deal with issues of human rights, revolution, civil war and Central American diaspora. Check out Rattlesnake, After the Bombs, and Sopa de Caracol, also published in Spanish as Cascabel, Después de las bombas, etc.

Please click here for more information about Arturo Arias.

Sandra Sunrising Osawa. Sandy Osawa, one of America's premier American Indian film producers and directors, is known for documentaries that capture the heartbeat of contemporary Indian life and advocate for American Indian rights. Her award-winning credits include "Lighting the 7th Fire" about the spearfishing struggles of the Chippewa of Wisconsin, "On & Off the Res with Charlie Hill," a profile of the Native American comedian, "Usual and Accustomed Places", about treaty rights in the Pacific Northwest, and "Pepper's Pow Wow,"about the legendary Native American jazz musician Jim Pepper that aired on PBS. Osawa's works have screened at countless film festivals including Sundance and have shown on public and network television.

Sandy Osawa is a member of the Makah Indian Nation in Washington State; she heads her own production company, Upstream Productions in Seattle.

Jonathan Hess is Professor of German, Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies, and Director of the Jewish Studies Center at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has published widely on discourses of esthetics and politics in the German Enlightenment and on German-Jewish culture and politics in the 18th and 19th centuries. His most recent book, Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) has been praised as "a brilliant and challenging study that rejects assimilation as the model of Jewish experience in Germany, and demonstrates instead the rebellious and subversive quality of modern Jewish thought" (Susanna Heschel). Professor Hess is currendy working on a book on German-Jewish literature and identity from the 1830s to the First World War.

Dr. Forte has worked for the past decade on ways in which people are moving about, and trying to create identities and homes, in areas of Israeli/Palestine Conflict. Dr. Forte’s ethnographic interpretations are illuminated by refugee and transnational experiences of her own family, encompassing Egypt, England, France, and Israel. Currently she teaches Anthropology at MaCalester College in Minnesota.

Stuart Rockefeller did two years of fieldwork with Quechua-speaking Bolivians in the highland of Bolivian region of San Lucas, and in an immigrant neighborhood near Buenos Aires, Argentina where men from San Lucas travel as migrant workers. His research is on the creative effects of movement – the ways that the people of San Lucas make and remake the landscape they inhabit through their own travels and through the circulation of information, goods, and money. By focusing on patterns of movement, he has developed a research project that encompasses the way San Luqueños make their agricultural fields through collective planting parties, the transformative impact of immigrant social movements in Buenos Aires, the impact of migrants on international borders, and the way information travels through rumors and gossip. Currently Dr. Rockefeller teaches anthropology at Haverford College.

Roberto Segre is one of the preeminent architectural historians focusing on the architecture of Hispanic America. A graduate of the Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, he holds a Doctorate in Arts and Sciences from the Facultad de Artes y Letras, Universidad de La Habana, and a Ph.D. in Regional and Urban Planning, IPPUR, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

From 1963 to 1994, Dr. Segre was Professor of History of Architecture and
Urbanism in the Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad de La Habana and Chair of the Architectural History Department at the Instituto Politécnico Superior “José Antonio Echavarría.” Since 1994 he has been a professor in the Departamento de Projeto Arquitetônico at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he coordinates the postgraduate program in urbanism.
Segre has been a visiting professor at the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico
(1981), Columbia University (1982), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University (1985 and 1987), Universidad de São Paulo (1989), University of Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela (1989 and 1992), Escuela Técnica Superior in Barcelona (1993), Université de Paris (1993), Rice University (1995–1996), the University of Southern California (2004), and Arizona State University (2005). In 1985 he received a Research Grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
He lectured at Miami University during the Latin American Celebration in 1996–1997.

Among his many publications are Cuba: Arquitectura de la Revolución (1970),
Arquitectura y Urbanismo Modernos: Capitalismo y Socialismo (1988),
América Latina fim de milênio: raízes e perspectivas de sua arquitetura (1991), Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis (with Mario Coyula and Joseph L. Scarpaci; 1997; revised edition, 2002), and Arquitetura brasileira contemporânea = Contemporary Brazilian Architecture (2003). His most recent book, La arquitectura Antillana del Siglo XX, received first prize at the Lima Bienal Iberoamericano de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (2004).

A member of of the renowned and distinguished Tafoya family of Santa Clara Pueblo (New Mexico), Tammy learned pottery from her mother Linda Cain) and her grandmother (Mary Cain).

Combining traditional and innovative techniques, she fearlessly renews the vitality of pueblo pottery, pushing its creation in uncharted directions. Even at the height of her powers, she continues to experiment and apply her vision and talents to new media by adding jewelry, bronze sculpture, and glassblowing to her repertoire. Her work can be seen in the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution) and is featured in galleries and private collections around the country. A book, Tammy Garcia: Form without Boundaries, has been written about her and her work. Garcia has received numerous awards for her artistry and creativity.

"Rains for the Harvest", a work she created in 2002, graces the entry to MacMillan Hall.

Born in Nigeria, Olu Oguibe has lived and practiced on three continents as an artist, art historian, poet, exhibitions curator, and a leading theorist. He has also taught literature, art, and art history in universities and colleges including Goldsmiths College London, University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, University of lllinois at Chicago and the University of South Florida where he held the Stuart Golding Endowed Chair in African Art. Since 1986, his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in major galleries and museums around the world including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Whitechapel Gallery, London, as well as biennials and triennials, most recently the Busan Biennial in South Korea. He has made permanent site-specific works in Germany and Japan. As an international curator he has curated exhibitions for the Tate Modem in London, the Museo de la Ciudad in Mexico City, and the Latere of the Venice Biennale, among many others. His many books include The Culture Game (University of Minnesota Press, 2004) and Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace (MIT Press, 2000).

News of the Holocaust: Why the Press Didn’t Ask
Laurel Leff

The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education at Hebrew Union College is privileged to be co-sponsoring a program with The Center for American and World Cultures at Miami University on Wednesday, April 13. Professor Laurel Leff will be delivering a keynote address News of the Holocaust: Why the Press Didn’t Ask based on her new book on the bookstands this month entitled Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper, which has just been published by Cambridge University Press.
Laurel Leff is a Professor of Journalism at Northeastern University. Prof. Leff has led a rich career as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald, and an editor with American Lawyer Media and the Hartford Courant who addressed women's issues, issues of unfairness and inequity, and opposed patronizing and biased media treatment of the public.
Her newest research in the back rooms of the NY Times revealed that though reporters were openly reporting on the victimization of the Jewish People under Nazi Germany, editors were altering or eliminating their filed reports, and thus deliberately downplayed news of the Holocaust and the Jewish identity of the victims.

Leff discovered that Holocaust news was consistently relegated to the Times' back pages. Only two percent of the articles during the 12 years of the Nazi regime appeared on the front page, and even those articles obscured the fact that most of the victims were Jews. The Times never ran a lead editorial about the Nazi genocide.

... Because of its importance, the Times helped set the tone for the rest of the media's coverage of Holocaust news; the Times "might have been able to help bring the facts about the extermination of the Jews to public consciousness ... [instead,] the Times helped drown out the last cry from the abyss." When the Nazi death camps were liberated, the Times' coverage downplayed the fact that the victims and survivors were overwhelmingly Jews.

Marvin Kalb, elder statesman of American journalism, said Buried by The Times "stands tall in scholarship, style and importance ... it is an exceptional study of one of the darkest failures of the New York Times..."

Leff’s commitment to insuring that the media is accountable in telling the truth about hate crimes, reporting racism, antisemitism and xenophobia and addresses media literacy in thinking women and men.

P. P. Karan's research interest is in the application of geographic theories and methodologies to analyze problems of environment, development, and social change in non-Western cultures. His current research involves analysis of sustainable development and environmental management paradigms; models of economy and environment; nature-society relationships; theories of multinational corporations' locational behavior; and the role of multinational corporations in the environment, development, and social restructuring in the Asia-Pacific region. Examples of Paul's most recent research are the political economy of environmental movements; environment and development in Nepal; regional assessment of environmental change in the Himalaya; spatial structure of social networks and development levels in South Asia; social construction of nature and environment in Japanese landscapes; and social and environmental impacts of Japanese investments in the Asia-Pacific region. A Distinguished Professor (1985-86) in the College of Arts and Sciences, Paul chairs the UK Japanese Studies Committee. He is a charter member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and serves as development planning and environmental management consultant to governments and international agencies in the Asia-Pacific region.
Some of his works:
The Non-Western World : environment, development, and human rights
New York : Routledge, 2004

Japanese Landscapes
Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, 1998

The Japanese city
Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, 1997

The changing face of Tibet : the impact of Chinese Communist ideology on the landscape
Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c1976