Tagged with "research"

UI associate professor Irina Kostina wins global curriculum development award to teach new course about the North Caucasus.

The twentieth century has been called the American Century, a time when American ingenuity, economic growth, military power, and vibrant cultural expression led to increased prosperity and confidence at home and a stabilizing role in leadership on the international stage. 2018 finds us in a time of shifting alliances, renewed nationalism, unraveling multinational trade agreements, and serious divides at every level of political discourse. On the next WorldCanvass, historians, political scientists, and a former U.S. ambassador will look back over the last century through the prism of foreign policy and explore the interwar period (1918-1939), follow the rise of the post-WWII Western alliance, and assess U.S. foreign policy in a new time of global realignment and instability. Joan Kjaer hosts WorldCanvass, which takes place in downtown Iowa City at MERGE, 136 South Dubuque Street, from 5:30-7 p.m. on Wednesday, December 5, and is free and open to the public. We invite you to come at 5 and join us for a pre-show catered reception.

Cooking with firewood and other biofuels is one of the most urgent problems in the world today. It affects the health and wellbeing of those inhaling the fumes at close range, relies on increasingly scarce sources of firewood, and contributes over 20% of global black carbon emissions. The harm to individuals and the environment cannot be denied, and yet there’s little awareness of the issue among the general public. WorldCanvass host Joan Kjaer and a panel of experts drawn from multiple fields including engineering, urban and regional planning, public health, anthropology, and geography will discuss the use of traditional wood-burning cookstoves and the complex social and cultural underpinnings of the practice on the April 12 WorldCanvass, a highlight of the UI’s yearly Provost’s Global Forum. The public is invited to attend the April 12 discussion at the Voxman Music Building Recital Hall from 7:30-9:30 p.m. There will be a pre-show catered reception from 6:30-7:30 p.m.

While immigrants have long fueled the American experiment, passionate debate about the pros and cons of immigration are nothing new. The rhetoric of recent national and local elections highlights tensions around changing demographics, inspiring debate about the impact of immigration on employment, on crime, and on community identity, while challenging the citizenry to examine their values and notions of what it means to be an American. On the next WorldCanvass, host Joan Kjaer and a diverse panel of guests will discuss the history of immigration in the Midwest over the past century and a half, as well as current questions about bilingualism, multiculturalism, and belonging and exclusion in times of international and domestic conflict. The public is invited to attend the free WorldCanvass discussion on Wednesday, March 8, from 7:30-9:00 p.m. in the Voxman Recital Hall.

New time, new location! Season eight of the television, radio, and internet program WorldCanvass will begin on Tuesday, September 13, at 7:30 p.m., in the newly-opened Voxman Music Building in downtown Iowa City. WorldCanvass guests will join host Joan Kjaer to discuss the controversial method of energy production known as fracking and its impact on the environment, social dynamics, and the economy. We’ll also explore through music, photography, and literature ways in which artists have documented transitions and grappled with the drumbeat of change. The public is invited to attend and no tickets are required.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Iowa will host a symposium on April 22 and 23 from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. at the University Capitol Centre. This event will serve as a platform for researchers on Chinese applied linguistics around the world to generate ideas, cross disciplinary boundaries, and disseminate research about issues and concerns in the learning and teaching of Chinese as a non-primary language (including heritage language learning) across different acquisition stages in different settings. Topics will include Chinese as a second language processes and development, data-driven pedagogy and discourse analysis and grammar.

The University of Iowa is ranked among the top 35 public universities in the nation (U.S. News & World Report) and is renowned not only for its academic excellence but for its research profile. But what does it mean to be a ‘research university?’ Joan Kjaer and her WorldCanvass guests discussed the answer to that question from multiple perspectives when they gathered on January 26 for a program called “Research to Real Life.” Below is a ReCap of the event with access to see and hear the full program.