The UCLA International Institute has selected nine scholars with great academic promise as Global Fellows for the 2003-2004 academic year.
Sharon Bhagwan is a specialist in film and television who received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University in 2002. Bhagwan, a native of Guyana, has studied also at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the Johns Hopkins University. During her time at UCLA, Bhagwan will work on the global cultural effects of alternative cinema from the United States, France, and India. She is fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish.
Roberto Farneti is a political philosopher who received his Ph.D. from the University of Messina, Italy, in 1996. UCLA political theorist Anthony Pagden considers Farneti's book Il canone moderno “one of the most original and persuasive readings of [the religious] aspect of Hobbes' political philosophy.” Farneti has held teaching or research appointments at the University of Bologna, Brown University, Columbia University, the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of European Law, and Oxford University. At UCLA, Farneti will complete “Hatred in an Age of Insecurity,” a study of the links among international institutions, violence, and theories of justice. He is fluent in German and Italian.
Robin Truth Goodman is a specialist in literatures of the Americas, postcolonial studies, and feminist theory. She is Assistant Professor of English at Florida State University and received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University in 1997. Goodman is author of Infertilities: Exploring Fictions of Barren Bodies (University of Minnesota Press, 2001); Strange Love: Or How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Market (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002); and World, Class, Women: Global Literature, Feminism, and the Politics of Education (Routledge, forthcoming 2003). She will use her fellowship to complete “Dick Lit,” a study of popular detective fiction (in English, French, and Spanish) as a metaphor for global policing. Professor Goodman speaks French and Spanish.
Francis Nesbitt is Assistant Professor of African Studies at San Diego State University and received his Ph.D. in African American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2002. Educated largely in Kenya, Nesbitt is author of Race for Sanctions: African Americans Against Apartheid, 1946-1994 (forthcoming, Indiana University Press, 2003). At UCLA, Nesbitt will research the African brain drain to the U.S. since the 18th century.
Trenton Smith is an evolutionary and behavioral economist who works on dietary preferences. Smith received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2002. He also holds degrees from Stanford University in Biological Sciences and Civil and Environmental Engineering. Smith was recently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bonn. At UCLA, he will research the effects of advertising on children's dietary preferences.
Muhammad Sani Umar is Assistant Professor of Islam in the Department of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Umar earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in Islamic Studies at leading Nigerian universities, before receiving his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1997. He has published extensively on Islam and Sufism in Nigeria, European colonialism, and Islamic education and law. At UCLA, Umar will explore the discourses of Muslim militants and liberal Islam. He is fluent in Hausa, English, and Arabic.
James Vreeland is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1999. Vreeland's book The IMF and Economic Development will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2003. At UCLA, he will begin explore the domestic politics behind international agreements and organizations on trade, investment, arms control, the environment, and human rights. Vreeland speaks French, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
Daniel Waldenstrom is a native of Sweden who did his doctoral work in Economics and Economic History at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has published peer-reviewed articles in leading economic history journals, as well as an already influential working paper on bond prices and war. At UCLA, Waldenström will work on the origins and development of stock markets, focusing on the 19th century era of internationalization. Fluent in German and Swedish, he is also a professional-level jazz bassist.
Christine Min Wotipka is Acting Assistant Professor at the Stanford University School of Education. She received her Ph.D. in International Comparative Education from Stanford in 2001, having served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand from 1993 to 1995. Wotipka's dissertation examined the changing place of women in engineering and science education around the world since the 1970s. At UCLA, Wotipka will explore the expansion of the international human rights regime.
From the almost 300 applications from scholars within seven years of receiving their Ph.D., the Fellows comprise: five social scientists and four humanists; five scholars of U.S. nationality and four from other countries; and six men and three women.
"The Fellows fulfill the Institute's vision," Vice Provost Geoffrey Garrett observed, "of an international and multidisciplinary group of emerging scholars of the highest intellectual caliber. Their presence at UCLA will greatly enrich intellectual life on campus and in the community."
The Global Fellows will be in residence at UCLA throughout the 2003-2004 academic year. They will work closely in formal and informal meetings with the Senior Fellows (see below) and with the Associate Fellows (a select group of advanced UCLA graduate students), as well as with invited scholars from inside and outside UCLA. Global Fellows will teach a one-quarter seminar, normally at the undergraduate level, on their own research.
The Senior Fellows who constituted the selection committee for the Global Fellows and who will act as their mentors next year are: Professors Robert Boyd (Anthropology), Robert Goldberg (Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology), Michael Heim (Slavic Languages and Literatures), Lynn Hunt (History), and Edward Leamer (Management and Economics).
Ronald Rogowski (Political Science) directs the Global Fellows Program.