Research

Unsettled Deep in Asia
With a film screening and a panel discussion, the UCLA Asia Institute and partners launch a Central Asia Initiative. The goal is to understand societies and cultures long on the fringes of study. Anticipating a UCLA conference in October 2008, historians on the panel ask what changed on the steppes of Central Asia as states acquired the means to move and deport whole peoples, and as nomads increasingly stayed put.

Latin American Film Studies Get Push from UCLA Institute
The Latin American Institute is launching a Film and Media Project, collaborating on a DVD collection for research libraries, and extending its menu of screenings and activities for cinema buffs.

Latin American Scholars Meet over Kimchi
A conference this month in Koreatown was the first step in bridging studies of Korea carried out in North and South America. Under a five-year grant, UCLA Korean studies researchers and their Latin American colleagues are planning collaboration and exchanges.

Leading Buddhist Studies Program Eyes Tibetan Gap
Center events on Tibetan Buddhism are part of an effort to create a UCLA chair in the field. On May 23, a high-ranking Buddhist abbot and a U of Michigan professor will read the poetry of a modern Tibetan monk in the original language and in English translation.

UCLA Center Launches National Effort to Understand, Educate 'Heritage' Speakers
With a new National Language Resource Center, the federal government is recognizing that the preservation of U.S. language communities will not be accomplished with approaches aimed at monolingual Americans.

The Bird in the Top of the Tree
Alain Mabanckou left behind a legal career to achieve acclaim as a poet, a biographer, and an award-winning novelist.

East and West Divided by Long, Bitter History
UCLA Professor Anthony Pagden's "Worlds at War" lays the historical groundwork for the political thinking that many feel is badly needed in our globalized post-9/11 world. In a wide-ranging interview, Pagden talked to Today Staff Writer Ajay Singh about what separates the West from the non-West and how the East-West divide might be bridged.

A Fiddle's Deep Roots
Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje is an international expert on things she once snubbed, with articles on gospel and spirituals and a new book on fiddling, "Fiddling in West Africa: Touching the Spirit in Fulbe, Hausa, and Dagbamba Cultures."

UCLA Faculty Research on China: Hongyin Tao
Professor Tao is doing pathbreaking work in Chinese linguistics and language teaching

Our Consumption Factor Imperils Us All
Jared Diamond: The only way out is to make consumption rates and living standards more equal around the world.

UCLA-Dutch Team Uncovers Egypt's Earliest Agricultural Settlement
The findings, which were unearthed in 2006 and are still being analyzed, also suggest possible trade links with the Red Sea, including a thoroughfare from Mesopotamia, which is known to have practiced agriculture 2,000 years before ancient Egypt.

Why US Spy Agencies Failed to Adapt
Former CIA agent Larry Johnson interviews Amy Zegart, an associate professor in the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a Burkle Center senior fellow, on her recent book "Spying Blind: The CIA, The FBI, and the Origins of 9/11." Watch the video, produced by UCLA Spotlight.

10 Questions for Lynn Hunt
Professor of History Lynn Hunt's 2007 book "Inventing Human Rights: A History" was published with CIA-sponsored "torture flights," "enhanced interrogation techniques" and genocide all in the news. She spoke with UCLA International Institute Senior Writer Kevin Matthews about whether the very idea of human rights is now in danger, and how novels aided the concept's evolution.

10 Questions with Saul Friedlander
UCLA History Professor Saul Friedlander, chronicler of the Holocaust, will receive the top award at the Frankfurt Book Fair this month.

Architecture in Context
World-renowned architect Hitoshi Abe, the new chair of the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design, discusses his fascination with Los Angeles' environs and Japanese-influenced structures.

Seeking 'Spatial Justice' for World's Disabled
Victor Pineda, a doctoral student in urban planning, will return to Dubai on a Fulbright-Hays award in December to monitor the implementation of an ambitious disability rights law. He argues that the built environments we live in largely determine our abilities and who we are.

Practical Math Problems Bring US, Foreign Students Together for Summer
UCLA's Research in Industrial Projects for Students program invites undergraduates from around the country and the world to work on mathematical challenges with applications in biotech, information technology, filmmaking, and more.

LA Times Highlights Good Deeds of Islamic Studies Graduate
Parisa Popalzai received a PhD in Islamic Studies from the UCLA International Institute in the 2008 winter quarter. Soon she'll be off to help Afghan copatriots in two big endeavors.

Domesticating the Harem
A doctoral student in art history reconsiders 'zenana' (female household) imagery in 19th- and early 20th-century India.

South African Heritages and Their Owners
On a trip to Cape Town, Laura Foster, an attorney and UCLA doctoral student in women's studies, discovers that intellectual property rights are not marginal concerns for marginalized and historically oppressed communities. They're near the center of efforts to reclaim and reaffirm cultures.

Hip Hop Working Group
The Graduate Quarterly profiles UCLA students who are looking at a global movement in music from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Women's Studies Branches Out
The UCLA Graduate Quarterly reports on international directions in women's studies. Three graduate students are profiled.

'Children of the Atomic Bomb' Website Honors Hiroshima, Nagasaki Victims
Commemorating victims of the blasts and presenting scientific findings about long-term effects of the atomic bomb, the website argues poignantly for non-nuclear proliferation.

Hyper-Driven
Todd Presner, associate professor of Germanic Languages and Jewish Studies and self-described "techie-humanist," is the mind behind Hypermedia Berlin, an online geodatabase that enables visitors to virtually explore the famous German city layer by layer and era by era.

Welcome to the New Language Classroom
Innovative language teaching doesn't have to be high-tech, but in a new media age the foreign language classroom is changing. This newly launched website looks into how.

Web Journalists Keep Discerning Eye on Asia
AsiaMedia's focus on global dimensions will be evident on April 27 when it will screen a documentary film by Yahoo! News reporter Kevin Sites about his solo journeys across 22 war zones over a year.

Lost in Translation? It's the L.A. Way
Three students, under the aegis of the Center for World Languages, part of the International Institute, launched a monthly online journal that celebrates L.A. and its astonishing linguistic diversity.

Database of All Things Latin American Aims Fresh Look, Languages, Options at Google-Happy Students
UCLA-based Hispanic American Periodicals Index has a record of adapting early to technological shifts. Now staff at HAPI have redesigned the web site in response to 'usability' testing by UCLA library science student, increased full-text offerings, and translated pages into Spanish and Portuguese.

African Stories in Online Curriculum Give Meaning to 'Globalization'
16 short tales, and warring commentaries on them, form the core of GlobaLink-Africa, a free, year-long, multimedia curriculum designed for grades 9-12. The polished, feature-rich web site is not only for high schoolers. Others can raid it for music, country data, or a crash course on Africa and the contemporary world.

Construction Begins on UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology
Egyptologists and UCLA's best technology centers commence the heavy lifting of rewriting ancient Egypt's history.