Faculty Research Awards Recipients

The following UF faculty have received three year research awards related to the themes of the Transnational and Global Studies Center.

Dr. Aida Hozic
Assistant Professor of International Relations
Department of Political Science

Dr. Hozic's research stands at the intersection of international political economy, international security and cultural studies. Thus far, it has mostly been focused on American media industries and their relation to power and warfare.

Dr. Michael Leslie
Associate Professor of International & Intercultural Communication
College of Journalism and Communications

Dr. Leslie conducts research on the impact of new communications technologies on education, culture and society and teaches introductory and advanced courses in related areas. read report

Mr. John Kaplan
Associate Professor
Department of Journalism

Kaplan is one of America's most accomplished visual journalists. In 1992, his words and pictures project about the diverse lifestyles of 21-year-olds was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. In 1999, he was awarded Best of Show in the AEJMC national web design competition for his civil rights research. In 1989, Mr. Kaplan received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for outstanding coverage of the disadvantaged in the United States. He is also a former National Newspaper Photographer of the Year in the annual Pictures of the Year (POY) contest, and winner of the Society of News Design’s Gold Award. He has twice been named a photography juror for the Pulitzer Prizes. Kaplan is a frequent lecturer at photography and journalism workshops and seminars throughout the world and has also received national recognition for his poetry and writing. In 1996, Kaplan's first book for children, Mom and Me, was named by Parents magazine as one of its best books of the year. He holds bachelors and masters degrees in journalism from Ohio University. Kaplan teaches photojournalism, design and editing. read report

Dr. Berta Hernandez
Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law
Levin College of Law

Dr. Hernandez teaches classes on International Law, International Human Rights, Issues of Gender/Race and Latinas/Latinos in the Law, and Employment Discrimination.

Faculty Reports

Vanishing Heritage: The Ethnic Minorities of China, Bolivia and Thailand
By Prof. John Kaplan

During this past year, my research project on indigenous cultures in danger of extinction due to the rapid industrialization and globalization of world cultures expanded to document the plight of Hill Tribe peoples in Northern Thailand.
I believe that it is of significant importance to document the traditions of indigenous cultures that are rapidly fading throughout the world. As a documentary photographer, it is my goal to document such traditions before they disappear. In Thailand, the Akha minority group is now in the process of losing its cultural identity. As electricity comes to each village, in turn, its inhabitants begin to realize the homogenized and idealized life portrayed on satellite television. The young often choose to leave the simple village life behind, in search of work and the other lures of city life.

Previous fieldwork had taken me to China and Bolivia. Thanks to help from the Transnational and Global Studies Center, the Vanishing Heritage project may expand in the future to document the plight of minority groups in Laos, including the Hmong and Akha peoples, where per capita income is less than $400 annually and the literacy rate in remote areas is only 20%.

The new Thailand work has been exhibited by the EBS television network, the Korean equivalent of our PBS, and was also exhibited as the major portion of my recent solo retrospective exhibition in Lima, Peru at the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano (ICPNA). Works from the project had earlier been also been shown in group exhibitions at museums and galleries in nine countries.   Recent publications included a just published article featuring my Thailand photography in the Chinese magazine, Vision. Works from the project have also been published in the magazine, Photo World.   Recent presentations related to the project include a lecture at the World Press Freedom Day Symposium held at the National Press Club in Washington entitled International Journalism: What's Our Responsibility?

During my 2004 visit to Thailand, collaborative research efforts included the development of relationships with Thailand's Chiang Mai University, and the Thai NGO,   Development Agriculture and Education Project for the Akha (DAPA). Both organizations were instrumental in facilitating new research there. A local expert on indigenous peoples in Thailand, Dr. Lamar Robert, generously agreed to accompany me in the field. In the future, I hope that he and Chiang Mai University may become ideal international partners for a future goal of creating a new university-wide course in Humanitarian Assistance Coverage.

Globalizing the Curriculum With Teleconferencing Technology
By Dr. Michael Leslie

My colleague Jean-Louis Sauvage at the University of Mons-Hainault, Belgium and I have been working together to create better cross cultural understanding and collaboration between students and faculty at his university and students at the University of Florida. We have created an enhancement to my course in International/Intercultural Communication and his course in American Culture and Civilization, using teleconferencing technology for real time exchange, discussion, and collaboration between faculty and students at both our institutions. We began experimenting with this last year under the auspices of a Senior Fulbright Specialist grant I received from the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and a grant from The University of Mons-Hainault.

I am returning to Belgium to evaluate and extend our collaboration in April-May, 2004, funded by a second competitive Fulbright award, supplemented by research and travel awards from the Center for Transnational and Global Studies and the Center for European Studies. I will take advantage of my presence in centrally-located Belgium to query other European universities and conduct research (1) on their technical ability, pedagogical approaches and experience with developing similar interdisciplinary videoconference-based course enhancements and (2) determine their interest in videoconferencing-based collaboration.

I also plan to discuss with their faculty the organization of a teleconference to discuss and evaluate the effectiveness of cross-cultural, technology-supported collaboration.

The initial candidate universities for this research are those believed to have both the requisite technological infrastructure to support this type of collaboration and a manifest interest in internationalizing and globalizing their course offerings. They were chosen based on their attractiveness to the University of Florida or because they already have an existing linkage with UF. Among them are: The University of Amsterdam, The University of Utrecht, The Sorbonne, The Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Science Politiques, The London School of Economics, The Open University, The Free University of Berlin, The University of Leipzig.