Research

Toward a Pan-American School of Things Korean
Now in its third year, the Korean Studies in the Americas program brings students to UCLA from four Latin American countries, supports collaboration among faculty, and sends American Koreanist scholars north and south for lectures. Funded by the Seoul-based Academy of Korean Studies, the UCLA-administered program has begun to snowball, attracting interest in the form of travel grants for Latin American students and faculty members visiting Korea and the United States.

New Focus on Central Asia's Puzzles
Over the coming three years, the UCLA Asia Institute will continue to promote study of Central Asia, with the help of outside faculty and new funding from the International Institute. Last month on campus, international scholars engaged in a day-long discussion on the region's history, arts, and cultures.

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.

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.

Lessons in Buddhism from an Iconoclastic Scholar
In his Faculty Research Lecture on March 10, Gregory Schopen hopes to illuminate a little-known aspect of Buddhism: the fact that it was one of the earliest social organizations in India to develop what might be called a corporation.

10 Questions for Vinay Lal
Going by the title of a witty and insightful book by Vinay Lal, associate professor of history, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S. Surgeon General-designate Sanjay Gupta are among "The Other Indians," distinct in many ways not just from native Americans but also from India's 1 billion people. Lal's book was recently published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press and HarperCollins (India). Here, he discusses the Indian community in the U.S. and geopolitical events in South Asia.

10 Questions for Sarah Abrevaya Stein
Ostrich feathers for women's hats were worth nearly as much as diamonds by weight just prior to World War I, when the bubble burst. In "Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce" (Yale University Press), a book that resonates with the current financial crisis, UCLA historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein describes a European and American vogue for African feathers from the 1880s and recounts sad tales of a global market crash that struck particularly hard at Jewish merchants.

Anthropologist Rose From Outcast to Academic
Now a professor of anthropology and co-director of Chinese studies at UCLA, Yan Yunxiang has returned many times to northeastern China to conduct fieldwork in Xiajia, where he lived for seven years as an ordinary farmer.

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."

10 Questions for Richard Baum
A crackdown on protesters in Tibet last month triggered demonstrations in London and Paris amid the running of the Olympic torch, effectively turning this summer's sporting contest in Beijing into what some are calling the "Human Rights Games." Richard Baum, veteran Sinologist and professor of political science, talked to Staff Writer Ajay Singh about China's decades-old Tibet challenge.

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.

Renewable Energy for Urban Homes
Urban planning graduate student and Fulbright fellow T.H. Culhane introduces handmade solar water heaters in Cairo and thinks about how energy projects can address both poverty and environmental problems.

Finding the Cutting Edge of Fashion in Indonesia
The Graduate Quarterly profiles anthropology graduate student and Fulbright fellow Brent Luvaas.

Musawah Movement: Seeking Equality and Justice in Muslim Family Law
A doctoral student in women's studies reports on a February gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, demanding inclusion of women's perspectives in the construction of family law in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries.

Venues of Transformation
Damola Osinulu, a doctoral student in the Department of World Arts and Cultures, took his International Fieldwork Fellowship to Lagos, Nigeria, to understand why at least a million Pentecostal worshippers come together just north of the city.

Hip Hop Dreams in Dakar
A whirlwind tour of the Senagalese captial's music scene laid the groundwork for my comparative dissertation.

UCLA Advanced Degrees Put to Work for Education in Afghanistan
Born in Kabul and brought up in Orange County, UCLA Islamic Studies alumna Parisa Popalzai says that war-torn Afghanistan needs the help of those who had to leave it. She applies skills learned at the Anderson School and the International Institute to two issues: giving Afghan kids with special needs a chance and training managers for a new economy.

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.

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.