2008 Archived Press Releases

March 2008

Baby trafficking topic of March 24 International Mondays

Patty Meier and Xiaole “Joy” Zhang, UI law students, will present “Sold Into Adoption: The Hunan Baby Trafficking Scandal Exposes Vulnerabilities in Chinese Adoptions to the United States” as part of the International Mondays lecture series. The presentation takes place from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, March 24, in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.

Meier and Zhang will talk about the Hunan baby trafficking scandal that was uncovered in late 2005. In the incident, the Chinese government prosecuted a number of orphanage officials and private individuals for their involvement in a child trafficking scheme that profited from placing trafficked children for inter-country adoption and collecting mandatory $3,000 donations from adopting parents. The story surprised many in the adoption community because China’s program of inter-country adoption had been thought to be nearly scandal proof to that point.

Meier is a mid-career law student at the University of Iowa. She worked as a writer and editor in Iowa, Washington, D.C., Illinois and Colorado before entering law school. She is also a mother to three children, one of whom was adopted from China in 2003.

Zhang is a second-year law student at the University of Iowa. She received her Bachelor of Law degree from the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), in Beijing, China. Before pursuing her Juris Doctorate, Zhang completed her Master’s of Law in International and Comparative Law from the University of Iowa College of Law in May 2005.

University of Iowa International Programs, Iowa City Public Library, and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization sponsor the presentation.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information visit contact Amy Green at 319-335-1433 or amy-green-1@uiowa.edu.

Opera Studies Group hosts Saylor for March 7 lecture

The UI Opera Studies Group, in collaboration with the School of Music Musicology and Theory Colloquium, will host Eric Saylor, assistant professor of music history at Drake University, as part of the “America and The Operatic Tradition” Lecture Series. Saylor will present "'I don't believe in realism': Imagining the African-American in Frederick Delius's Koanga" at 1:30 p.m. March 7 in Voxman Music Building, Room 1027.

Summary of the talk

Although not widely known, Frederick Delius's opera Koanga (1904) taps into the late romantic fascination with the exotic while raising complex issues about racial and class representation. The opera's white antagonists use chromatic, rhythmically flexible, and virtuosic musical idioms reminiscent of Wagner or Puccini, while the antebellum Louisiana plantation setting allows choruses of slaves to be assigned African-American folk songs that reflect clichés of musical exoticism. However, the black protagonists Koanga (a voodoo high priest) and Palmyra (the quadroon attendant and stepsister of the plantation owner's wife) occupy a higher social status than their fellow slaves, and their musical styles are indistinguishable from those of the white characters. Hence, their musical and dramatic characters are destabilizing forces: they are not only "exotic," but unpredictable, and therefore dangerous to the status quo. At the same time, both Koanga and Palmyra are always at the mercy of powers greater than themselves, both physically and metaphysically. While Delius's music treats Koanga and Palmyra as individuals worthy of operatic heroism, George Keary's libretto essentializes both characters into archetypes unable to exploit the power they possess. In this way, both race and class are subsumed beneath the musico-dramatic conventions of late nineteenth-century opera, where fate holds sway over all. Such a reading may also help us to better understand Delius, an English composer whose musical practices and interests diverged from the professional artistic conventions of fin-de-siècle British musical society.

Biographical Information

Eric Saylor is Assistant Professor of Music History at Drake University, where he has taught since 2003. He received an M.A. in Musicology from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Michigan. Dr. Saylor's area of specialization is British music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly the life and works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius. During 1998-99, Dr. Saylor served as an editorial assistant at the British Library, helping collect, transcribe, and annotate Vaughan Williams's complete correspondence, to be published by Oxford University Press in fall 2008. He has presented papers for, among other groups, the Society of American Music, the American Musicological Society, the International Conference on Twentieth-Century Music, the International Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, and the North American British Music Studies Association, for which he currently serves as Secretary. He has articles forthcoming in Nineteenth-Century Music Review and Musik Konzepte, and is contributing co-editor for Operatic Blackness, a collection of essays to be published by the University of Illinois Press. His other areas of interest include music and politics, the historiography of English music, and shape-note hymnody.

Natural disasters in Bangladesh topic of March 10 International Mondays

Luke Juran, a University of Iowa doctoral student in geography, will present “Coping with Natural Disasters in Bangladesh” as part of the International Mondays lecture series. The presentation takes place from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, March 10, in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.

Juran will present information on how Bangladesh and Bangladeshis cope with frequent and various forms of natural disasters. Juran was a participant in a group research project to Bangladesh in summer 2007 with the Geographic Alliance of Iowa, which was funded by a grant from Fulbright-Hays. He will weave Bangladesh's coping mechanisms with issues of culture, gender and politics.

Juran received his B.A. in social science secondary education with minors in economics, geography and history from the University of Northern Iowa. He completed his student teaching requirements in Rome and then taught for two and a half years at the American International School of Jeddah, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Juran is completing his master’s degree in international studies from the UI. His thesis focuses on critically analyzing the impacts of microfinance on health, agriculture and women’s empowerment in Tamil Nadu, India. He is currently a doctoral student in geography, focusing on natural disaster response in South Asia and in Tamil Nadu, specifically. He is interested in how politics, policies, local economies and socio-cultural variables and contexts affect natural disaster response and are affected by the natural disaster itself. For this research Juran has received funding from Rotary International as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar and from the Crossing Borders program as a Crossing Borders Fellow.

University of Iowa International Programs, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City Foreign Relations Council and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization sponsor Juran’s presentation.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information visit contact Amy Green at 319-335-1433 or amy-green-1@uiowa.edu.

February 2008

Mid-Prairie Home School students will learn about Kenyan culture Feb. 29

A UI program will help the students of Mid-Prairie Home School in Kalona learn about Kenyan life and culture Feb. 29.

Vivian Ochola, a UI student from Kenya pursuing a graduate degree in clinical nursing, will speak to students through the UI International Programs' International Classroom Journey (ICJ). The presentation will take place from 10 to 10:30 a.m. Ochola’s presentation is part of the school’s International Day, which is focusing on the continent of Africa. Ochola will talk about life and culture in Kenya to a group of 65 kindergarten through 9th graders.

The ICJ, which is sponsored by UI International Programs, arranges for guest speakers to visit K-12 classrooms and community groups to promote cultural awareness and knowledge of other countries. These guest speakers are trained international students and scholars and U.S. students who have spent time abroad.

For more information, contact Amy Green, 319-335-1433, amy-green-1@uiowa.edu.

Wilton high school students will learn about Africa Feb. 29

Students at Wilton High School in Wilton will learn about Africa through a UI program Feb. 29.

Almaz Getachew, a doctoral student in rehabilitation counseling, will speak with teacher Shannon McDonald’s class through the UI International Programs' International Classroom Journey (ICJ). The presentation takes place from 1 to 1:45 p.m. Getachew lived in Ethiopia until she was 10 before moving to the U.S. Her presentation will supplement what the students have been learning about Africa as part of Black History Month.

For more information, contact Amy Green, 319-335-1433, amy-green-1@uiowa.edu.

Hoover elementary students will learn about Indonesia Feb. 22

Third grade students at Hoover Elementary School in West Branch will learn about Indonesia through a UI program Feb. 22.

Anastasia Dewi, a Foreign Language Teaching Assistant from Indonesia, will speak with teacher Jacqui Hart’s class through the UI International Programs' International Classroom Journey (ICJ). The presentation, which takes place from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., is part of Hoover’s “Games Around the World” Diversity Day celebration.

Contact: Amy Green, 319-335-1433, amy-green-1@uiowa.edu.

Kalona elementary students will learn about Chinese culture Feb. 25

A University of Iowa program will help kindergarten students at Kalona Elementary School in Kalona learn about Chinese culture and the Chinese New Year celebration Feb. 25.

Yi Chen, a UI student from China pursuing a graduate degree in educational policy and leadership studies from the College of Education, will speak with teacher Vanessa Spring’s class through the UI International Programs' International Classroom Journey (ICJ). The presentation will take place from 2 to 2:30 p.m. in Spring’s classroom.

For more information, contact Amy Green, IP Outreach secretary at 319-335-1433 or amy-green-1@uiowa.edu.

'International mobility' topic of Feb. 25 International Mondays lecture

Éva Tessza Udvarhelyi will present “Leaving My Comforts Behind Made Me a Better Person: How International Mobility Changes Lives and Your World” as part of the International Mondays lecture series. The presentation takes place from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.

In her presentation, Udvarhelyi will discuss culture shock’s unimaginable potential for personal and communal learning. According to Tessza, consciously-lived intercultural experiences can lead people to find a greater balance within themselves and in the social world around them.

Udvarhelyi holds a master’s degree in cultural anthropology and is completing her thesis in American studies at ELTE University in Budapest, Hungary. She is currently a doctoral student at the Environmental Psychology Program of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Udvarhelyi is author of “Travelers Across Cultures: A Guide to Intercultural Learning for Young Adults Traveling Abroad.” Between 1999 and 2007 Udvarhelyi worked as a trainer, youth worker and project coordinator in intercultural pedagogy at Artemisszió Foundation, a Budapest-based NGO.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information or special accommodations, contact Amy Green, International Programs outreach secretary, at 319-335-1433 or amy-green-1@uiowa.edu

UI International Programs, the Iowa City Public Library and the UI-Stanley Support Foundation sponsor Udvarhelyi’s lecture.

Center for Human Rights hosts film screening on U.S. retail industry labor practices Feb. 19

The UI Center for Human Rights (UICHR) and the University of Iowa Labor Center will host a community screening of the film, “Made in L.A.”at 7 p.m. on Feb. 19, at 101 Biology Building East (BBE). The screening, made possible by Active Voice and the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR), is free and open to the public.

The film will be followed by a discussion with Almudena Carracedo, the director of the film, and/or Robert Bahar, the producer of the film.

“Made in L.A.” chronicles the story of three Latina immigrants – Lupe, Maura and María – working in sweatshops in Los Angeles. These three women, along with other immigrant workers, come together at L.A.'s Garment Worker Center to take a stand for their rights. The workers launch a very public challenge -- a lawsuit and a boycott -- to one of the city's flagship clothiers and embark on a three-year struggle to win basic labor protections from the clothing retailer, Forever 21.

The film will be screened in English and Spanish with bilingual subtitles. “Made in L.A.” is a co-production of Semilla Verde Productions, Inc., the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and P.O.V.’s Diverse Voices Project, which is made possible through major funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is a co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting.

In an effort to develop public consciousness about worker and immigrant rights, MCHR and UICHR will provide educational materials and a panel discussion at the screening, along with opportunities to get involved in MCHR’s “Slow Down the Line” Campaign to raise awareness about labor rights in the meatpacking industry of the Midwest.

For more information about MCHR, visit midwesthumanrights.org. For more information n about Active Voice, visit activevoice.net. For more information about the screening, contact Amy Weismann at amy-weismann@uiowa.edu or 319-335-3900.

Campbell to discuss slavery and Brown University Feb. 18

James Campbell, professor of Africana Studies and American Studies at
Brown University and chair of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, will present “Navigating the Past: Slavery, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and Brown University” at 7 p.m., Monday, February 18, 2008 in 107 EPB.

In 2003, Brown University President Ruth Simmons appointed a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The committee of faculty members, undergraduate and graduate students and administrators was charged to investigate and report on the university’s historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. It was also asked to help the campus and the nation reflect on the meaning of this history in the present, on the complex historical, political, legal and moral questions posed by any present-day confrontation with past injustice.

Beginning with the committee’s discovery of a detailed ship’s log of the founding family’s disastrous expedition to capture slaves in Africa to the conversion of one family member to the anti-slavery movement, the committee’s “report” traces a path from a violent past to a new spirit of public engagement. The extensive archive produced by this dramatic example of “public scholarship” can be seen online.

“The work of professor Campbell and the other members of the committee demonstrates the powerful role the humanities can play in helping communities question the inevitability of social injustice. By studying the history and culture of one university, the committee documented the continuing effects of slavery on the institution, the students and staff, and the surrounding community. Most remarkably, the interdisciplinary, international research of the Committee on Slavery and Justice laid the foundation for genuine social change,” said Teresa Mangum, director of the English and International Programs of the 18th and 19th Century Interdisciplinary Colloquium (ENCIC). “As professor Campbell will explain in his talk, Brown University has chosen to use the resources of the university to address the inequities and disparities that remained as a complex legacy of the enslavement of Africans. It would be hard to find a more moving argument for the public engagement of the humanities and of universities.”

Campbell’s research focuses on African American history and on the wider history of the Black Atlantic. He is currently working on two books, a study of the role of Africa in the life and thought of the pioneering pan-African scholar and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois, and a history of the "Americanization" of South Africa. He has also been involved with a range of public history and curricular projects, including projects focusing on race and the American Revolution, the history of the Rhode Island Slave Trade, and the Civil Rights Movement. Most recently he has collaborated with Susan Smulyan of Brown's Department of American Civilization and Ernie Limbo of Tougaloo College in creating "Freedom Now!", a Web site exploring the history of the Mississippi Freedom Movement.

Campbell’s talk is among a 2007-2008 lecture series “Race and Rights in the 18th and 19th Centuries” hosted by ENCIC, which brings visiting scholars in diverse disciplinary areas to campus. The event is co-sponsored by the UI International Programs, Departments of English, French and Italian, and History, School of Art and Art History, African Studies Program, Caribbean, Diaspora, and Atlantic Studies, European Studies Group, and Center for Human Rights.

ENCIC is also hosting a lecture at 7 p.m., Monday, April 21, 2008 in 116 ABW. Martial Guédron, professor of Art History at Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg, France will present “Nature, Ideal, and Caricature: The Perception of Physical Types by the First Anthropologists.”

For more information regarding the two lectures, contact teresa-mangum@uiowa.edu.

Kanna to speak on ‘Forgotten Globalizations’ Feb. 19

Ahmed Kanna, International Programs postdoctoral fellow will present “Forgotten Globalizations: The View from the Contemporary Arabo-Persian Gulf” at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19 in the International Commons (1117 UCC).

Description of Talk:

What do we mean when speak about ‘globalization’? Is this an economic, a political, a cultural phenomenon? Does it originate in a specific culture, geographic locale, or social group? Do we implicitly assume that one version is the only version? In this paper, I focus on the contemporary Arabo-Persian Gulf region to look at different globalizations, ones usually ignored in the journalistic and scholarly literature.

By looking especially at the coastal Gulf, a picture emerges of a transnational world connecting the Arab world, Iran, Africa, and South Asia through centuries of commercial, linguistic, imperial, and commercial contact. More recently, the region has filtered this pluralism through connections further afield, to East Asia, Southern Africa, and North America. What we mean by globalization, in short, crucially depends on where we are geographically situated, where we are looking from, and our privilege and power to define that globalization as universal.

Opera Studies Group hosts Pisani for Feb. 21 lecture

The UI Opera Studies Group will host Michael Pisani, associate professor of music at Vassar College, as part of the “America and The Operatic Tradition” Lecture Series. Pisani will present “Tunes for Damsels, Villains, and Heroes: Music as Medium and Message in 19th-Century British and American Theatre” at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 21 in Gerber Lounge, English-Philosophy Building.

Description of Talk:

Most of the plays produced by the major English-language popular theatres of the 19th century had music, from British "nautical dramas" like“The Flying Dutchman or Black-Eyed Susan,” to swashbucklers like“The Corsican Brothers” or “The Prisoner of Zenda,” to Civil War-themed dramas such as“The Heart of Maryland” or“Secret Service,” and including, of course, grand productions of Shakespeare by the likes of Edwin Booth and Henry Irving. Why did these productions rely so heavily on dramatic music, much more so than legitimate theatre ever did in the 20th century? Was it because 19th-century theatre, even the most realistic drama, served a need for the irrational world of fantasy and illusion?

A recreation of 19th-century plays--using source documents such as actual music played by the musicians in the pit--will go a long way toward proving that audiences then as now needed the emotional and psychological contextualization that only music can provide. It also reveals that this form of dramatic music in the 20th century simply moved over to the more popular medium of the cinema, leaving drama a far more austere and literary art-form than most 19th-century actors and producers would have ever imagined.

Pisani is author of“Imagining Native America in Music” (Yale Univ. Press, 2005) and an associate professor of music at Vassar College. He is on the editorial boards of MUSA (Music of the United States of America), Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Film, and The Film Music Journal. This past year he gave several radio interviews and lectures relating to his recent book. He also participated in a research symposium at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, along with anthropologists, historians, and film experts on the restoration of a silent film (with full musical accompaniment) of Edward Sheriff Curtis's In the Land of the Headhunters (1914). He has a chapter on "Music in the Theatre" in the Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre and is writing a book on the subject for the University of Iowa Press.

January 2008

Jan. 22 - Dr. Michele Yehieli to talk on Immigrant Health and the Iowa Center on Health Disparities

Dr. Michele Yehieli, the Associate Professor in the Division of Health Promotion and Education at the University of Northern Iowa and Executive Director of the Iowa EXPORT Center of Excellence on Health Disparities, will visit the University of Iowa on Wednesday, Jan. 23, at 12:15pm – 1:00pm in 256 General Hospital, as part of University of Iowa Human Rights Week and the UI Center for Human Rights' (UICHR) speaker series.

Dr. Yehieli’s primary areas of specialty include refugee, minority, and immigrant care, as well as maternal and child health for underserved populations. She has more than 25 years of field experience in public health, conducting programs both domestically and internationally with refugees, women, children, minorities, the elderly, and other at-risk individuals.

Dr. Yehieli is the founder and advisor of the award-winning “Global Health Corps,” a model service-learning program at the University of Northern Iowa that has trained more than 500 students in conducting culturally appropriate public health programs with over 40,000 diverse and underserved populations in the United States and abroad.
Additional sponsors for the noon lecture include the College of Public Health, the College of Public Health Student Association, and the Global Health Club. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dr. Yehieli will present information about diversity in an interactive, informational setting. The talk is entitled, “A Diversity Discussion: Immigrant Health and the Iowa Center on Health Disparities.”
For more information or special accommodations to attend talk, contact the UICHR at 319-335-3900 or uichr@uiowa.edu.

The UICHR are part of International Programs, which enables University of Iowa students, faculty, staff and the public to learn from and about the world. Its offices, degree programs and events provide life-changing opportunities on campus and abroad, heighten intellectual and cultural diversity and give all university constituents access to vital international knowledge. For more information call 319-353-2700. International Programs is part of the UI Office of the Provost.

Jan. 18 - Human Rights Benefit Concert to take place Jan. 24

UI Amnesty International and the Global Health Club are sponsoring J[AMnesty] Human Rights Benefit Concert from 6 to 11 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, at Old Brick, 26 E. Market St. Proceeds from the concert will benefit Amnesty USA’s Denounce Torture campaign, which works to end unlawful detention and investigate allegations of torture, and DarfurFast, a fundraising initiative by numerous human rights organizations to prevent the rape and other assaults on women in Sudanese refugee camps.

Musical acts include The Western Front, Happy Go Lovely, King Dipshit and the Broken Spokes, Intersection, Derek Thorn and Craigula, and a local Sudanese band. Abdalla Mohamed Abdalla will also speak. Abdalla was born in Sudan, where he worked as a teacher, freelance musician, activist and journalist.

Attendees are asked to bring a canned food item to donate to the Johnson County Crisis Center. The concert is open to the public. A $5 suggested donation will benefit human rights organizations. Speakers during the program include:

For more information please contact: Shajia Ahmad at shajia-ahmad@uiowa.edu or Juliet Reid at juliet-reid@uiowa.edu.

Jan. 17 - New Stanley Foundation president to visit UI campus Jan. 24

Program officers of the Muscatine-based Stanley Foundation, including its new president Vlad Sambaiew, will visit the University of Iowa campus on Thursday, Jan. 24.

They will speak about the foundation’s global affairs programs in a presentation titled “Promoting a Secure Peace through International Cooperation: An Introduction to Iowa’s Stanley Foundation,” from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Lucas Dodge Room of the Iowa Memorial Union. The presentation, which is free and open to the public, is hosted by UI International Programs.

“The Stanley Foundation has a long history of successful collaboration with the University of Iowa, and with International Programs in particular, to enhance the internationalization of our faculty, staff, and students,” said Downing Thomas, associate dean of International Programs. “We are grateful for this opportunity to introduce Vlad Sambaiew and his colleagues to the University community.”

Sambaiew will provide an introduction and general overview of the Stanley Foundation to begin the presentation.

“This event is an excellent opportunity for intellectual exchange on important international affairs issues with faculty, students and the public,” Sambaiew said. “Our program officers are specialists in key world regions and pressing challenges in areas such as nonproliferation.”

Additional speakers from the Stanley Foundation include:

Michael Kraig, director of policy analysis and dialogue. Kraig will discuss the foundation’s current policy initiatives, including its work on nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament, and U.S. and global security issues.
Michael Schiffer, program officer. Schiffer will discuss the foundation’s work on North Korea, Asian security, and multilateral architecture issues.
Keith Porter, director of communication and outreach. Porter will discuss the foundation’s public programming initiatives, including citizen engagement, media relationships, and public broadcasting.
Jill Goldesberry, program officer for community partnerships. Goldesberry will discuss the foundation’s breadth of Iowa educational programming.

Sambaiew joined the foundation on Sept. 4, 2007, following a 30-year U.S. State Department career. As minister counselor for economic affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Sambaiew was responsible for all aspects of economic and trade relations between the United States and Mexico. He served in similar positions at U.S. embassies in Tokyo, Moscow, Paris and Ottawa. Sambaiew directed the State Department’s Office of Bilateral Trade during the time of China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

In the mid-‘90s, Mr. Sambaiew was counselor for environment, science, and technology at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow where he was in-country lead on the U.S.-Russia program to control “loose” Russian nuclear materials. He also oversaw three sessions of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. Earlier in his career, he served in Japan from 1985 to 1991 and ran a U.S. training program for Eastern European officials.

The Stanley Foundation seeks a secure peace with freedom and justice, built on world citizenship and effective global governance. It brings fresh voices, original ideas, and lasting solutions to debates on global and regional problems. The foundation is a nonpartisan, private operating foundation, located in Muscatine, Iowa, that focuses on peace and security issues and advocates principled multilateralism. The foundation frequently collaborates with other organizations. It does not make grants.

University of Iowa International Programs enables UI students, faculty, staff and the public to learn from and about the world. Its offices, degree programs and events provide life-changing opportunities on campus and abroad, heighten intellectual and cultural diversity and give all university constituents access to vital international knowledge. For more information, visit the International Programs website or call 319-353-2700. International Programs is part of the UI Office of the Provost.