Research

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.

International Institute Grants Boost 8 Faculty Projects
The next round of applications for UCLA International Institute faculty grants, for globally oriented outreach and research, is due on March 3, 2008.

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.

Oak to Spearhead English-Language Studies of Korean Christianity
This summer Sung-Deuk Oak, a UCLA faculty member in Asian Languages and Cultures, was chosen to be the first scholar funded under the Dong Soon Im and Mi Ja Im endowment. He'll be charged with telling a remarkable story in the history of religion.

Records of East Timor, 1999
UCLA historian Geoffrey Robinson is leading a mission to save evidence of a young nation's turbulent birth and working through his own memories of violence.

UCLA Faculty Craft 2 New Research Fields
Under proposals submitted by Professors Andrew Apter and Rogers Brubaker, each with a collaborator at another campus, the Social Science Research Council will steer dissertation writers towards "Black Atlantic Studies" and "Rethinking Europe."

UCLA Brazilianist Takes Top Sociology Book Award
Assumptions about race relations derived from U.S. experience don't hold for Brazil, Edward Telles announced in 'Race in Another America,' judged best contribution to sociology in three years.

Law Prof Reaffirms Islam's Moral Message
In Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and Turkey, audiences of up to 1,000 people recently turned up to listen to him speak. In the United States, Abou El Fadl's views have made him unpopular among fellow Arab Americans.

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.

Letter from Gyumri: Faith into Action
Epifania Amoo-Adare, a former UCLA graduate student in Education and staffer at the UCLA Globalization Research Center-Africa, writes about her work in the South Caucasus.

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

For the Grins
The question of why to study the Quechua language has any number of easy answers.

Young Scholars Discuss Beauty, Ramen Noodles
"Images of a Nation: Approaches to the Aesthetics of Japan," a symposium, brings graduate students from across the nation to UCLA.

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.