World Conversations: Voices from around the globe

South America - Expedition into the Amazon Basin

2006-11-14T10:21:19-08:00

After thirty years of development and exploitation, oil remains the most important component of Ecuador’s economy, and its most controversial environmental issue. The widespread penetration of roads into the jungle has made vast tracts of formerly inaccessible areas open to human colonization and destruction. As significant, frequent oil spills from the pipelines carrying oil across Ecuador, to the refineries along the coast, and the widespread contamination from oil waste products and drilling sites, have created ecological hazards of massive proportions. Large-scale oil exploitation began in Ecuador with Texaco in the Amazon Basin—“el Oriente” or Ecuador east of the Andes—with Texaco in the 1970s. Since then, more oil has contaminated the Amazon Basin Ecuador than two Exxon Valdez spills—over 20 million gallons of oil.
Poverty rates have more than tripled in the country. Cancer rates have grown steadily in the region among local people. According to Miguel San Sebastian, a public health expert who has studied cancer rates in the Amazon for 13 years, “Oil exploitation in the Amazon Basin is a public health emergency.” Indigenous women, for example, suffer 2.5 times the number of miscarriages in their river communities. The incidence of cancer is some 2.56 times higher in the oil zones of the Amazon compared to other areas. In some areas, the concentration of hydrocarbons is 300 times over the limit for potable water. Yet the indigenous and colonist communities have always depended on, virtually lived in, the rivers.
The heart of our Student-Faculty Research Project is a journey by canoe through oil country in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. With Luis Francisco Yanza, the Legal Coordinator for “Frente para la Defensa de la Amazonian,” we will travel from Lago Agrio, down the Río Aguarico, through several indigenous communities in Ecuador’s oil country. Lago Agrio (a city in northern Amazon Basin of Ecuador) is the epicenter of oil exploitation in Ecuador. Along the Río Aguarico, we will pass through several indigenous communities—Siona, Secoya, and Quichua. We will also travel to Shushufundi and Coca, boom towns in the oil frontier. We will rent a car and travel down the Vía Auca, through the expanding “colono” or colonist communities that have migrated into the area along the roads in the jungle. The Vía Auca leads through oil pits deep into Haorani territory. Auca is an older name for Haorani, still one of the most traditional of indigenous peoples in the Amazon.
In this journey, we will see oil wells, waste pits, and pipelines. We will study the consequences of oil development to the environment and interview local people on health issues as a result of working in fields and living areas contaminated by oil. We will also conduct several interviews in Quito.
Charles Bergman, Professor of English, has been living in Ecuador as a Fulbright Senior Scholar during Fall Semester 2006. He has numerous contacts in the environmental community in Ecuador. He visited the site of a major oil spill near Aguarico in August 2006, documenting its environmental and public health consequences. He also traveled in Haorani territory, seeing oil wells and pipelines and areas scheduled for new oil exploration—and talking extensively with the people of the areas.

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North America - Photography in New York City

2006-11-14T10:13:35-08:00

This course focuses on photographing in New York City, one of the most stimulating and dynamic cultural environments in the world. You will experience its complexity in art, architecture, and ethnic neighborhoods by photographing in various well-known areas of the city, visiting major museums and galleries, and attending video installations, cinema, theater, modern dance and performance art.
Assigned projects will include, but are not limited to, daily written journals of observations and experiences and a re-photographic project where students go to the vicinity of a particular place and photograph using and adapting various styles of master photographers. Stylistic methods for these photographic projects will vary as students investigate the many working methods for photographing in the city. Topics include how to use focal length, review of shutter speed, depth of field, existing light, and how to deal with various physical spaces as well as the ability to assess a fast-changing scene.
Students will also explore the advantages of the portable rangefinder with its big LCD display, to the DZSLR and the Digital SLR, as well as the advantages of using differing storage media such as Compact Flash, SD disks, and memory stick cameras. Students are encouraged to bring their Apple iPods and digital wallets.
Course objectives include:

The emphasis for this class will be on creating a portfolio of photographs that are inspired by the City's uniquely exciting environments.
The varied shooting assignments are aimed at developing students' technical and creative skills using digital techniques.
Emphasis will be on creating unique visual narratives that may be thematic or literal while gaining an appreciation for the arts, architecture, and diversity of people in New York City.

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Africa - South Africa

2006-11-14T10:10:09-08:00

Spend four weeks in Suth Africa exploring how four crucial social institutions work to promote peace and justice in their society.

The Courts – Meet with Chief Justice and tour the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. Visit the South African Institute for Race Relations.

The Theater - Experience how theater and performance in South Africa has been used as an alternative to violence in communities in conflict. Examine the political intent of street theatre, as well as the mobilizing force of “township” theater (first used against apartheid; now a tool against HIV/AIDS). Meet theater professors, theater directors and actors. Attend stunning performances at Cape Town’s Space Theater and Johannesburg’s Market Theater, among the first venues to challenge apartheid’s segregation laws.

The Churches – Meet with religious leaders from the Christian and Muslim communities to discuss their efforts to promote and maintain peace in their communities and beyond. Attend a seminar session at a Peace Center. Visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held during the liberation struggle.

The Schools – Visit schools that promote a vision of reconciliation for young South Africans. Learn about post-secondary education possibilities for high school graduates.

During this time, students will overnight in a rural African village, swim in the Indian Ocean’s warm waters, meet Cape Town’s penguins and enjoy a safari in a spectacular game park, cable-car up Table Mountain, descend a Johannesburg gold mine, and visit the southernmost point of Africa where Atlantic and Indian oceans meet.

Course objectives include:

To understand the experience the power of the written and spoken word to explore social and personal change.
To promote a writer’s consciousness of audience and purpose within different genres.
To encourage integrative thinking, skills in writing, discernment in reading, and appreciation of aesthetic and human values.
To enjoy meeting humans and animals from a different continent.

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Europe

2006-11-14T10:08:14-08:00

Some of the greatest philosophers of all time lived and wrote in places such as London, Greece and Germany. We will travel not only to study their lives but to explore what they revealed to us through their insight into the world and philosophy.

In settings that gave rise to the moral theories that we discuss in class, students will have the advantage of examining these seminal thinkers in the environment that shaped them. Traveling to the locations where the moral theories under examination originated will offer students an opportunity to explore the cultural conditions in which these moral theories arose. Being able to draw on the social, cultural, and historical dimensions that birthed the moral theories will enrich the learning and study for the student. As such, students will have the opportunity to relate theoretical content to concrete social, historical and cultural conditions that are dramatically different from those in the classroom.

Course objectives include:

Understand the themes, issues, and central concepts of significant Western moral theories, and how their own understanding of ethics and morality emerges from these traditions.
Develop more active and critical habits of reading, writing, and oral communication.
Cultivate the ability to state a position that is coherent, clear, and developed.
Examine moral issues from multiple perspectives, paying special attention to the various assumptions behind and consequences of ideas.
Practice philosophy as a way of living where you learn to enter into the act of philosophy as it might extend to your other interests.

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Oceania - New Zealand

2006-11-14T10:01:38-08:00

High adventure on the seas, the legends and myths of the Maori, the storytelling fantasy of Margaret Mahy…. all of these traditions, expectations, and perspectives are a part of the rich array of New Zealand’s contributions to the growing body of quality international literature for young people.

This course will focus on children’s and young adult literature from New Zealand, which has a long history of award winning international authors in this field. Students will explore the connections between New Zealand culture/society and its representations in literature. As well, in the sense of global education, we will explore issues around social justice and peace both within the ethos of New Zealand culture and society and within the field of children’s and young adult literature.

We will have many opportunities to talk about the books we’re reading while experiencing the aspects of New Zealand that create the rich themes found in this literature. We will be based in Auckland for the majority of our stay so we will have access to museums, the maritime experience, libraries, universities, bookstores, and other resources to help us explore our understanding of the texts we’ll be reading. We will also arrange visits with authors, storytellers, illustrators, and publishers, as well as with librarians, teachers, children, and parents, to talk about the rich literary heritage in which children’s and adolescent literature is based.

The course will begin in Christchurch on the South Island where we will meet with local authors/illustrators and various experts in children's and adolescent literature including bookshop owners and the director of the Margaret Mahy Collection in the Canterbury Public Library. We will find various ways to interact with the 'power of place' via train trips, nature explorations, tramping trips, and other experiences. The trip will continue via train along the South East coast toward Wellington, where we will visit the National Museum (Te Papa) and the Naitional Library, again connecting with a variety of folks connected to children's and adolescent literature . A train trip through the length of the North Island will take us to Auckland, where you will have the opportunity to plan your own opportunities to experience the 'power of place'. A trip to Rotorua, the heart of the Maori culture, will be included as a culmination to our experiences."

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