In This Issue
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STUDENT NEWS
LAS Students and Alumni Take on the World
What do these four current and former LAS students have in common? They will all soon embark on a year of research and study abroad with a little help from their Fulbright fellowships.
From the Monte Alegre hills of Brazil to Jaipur, India, and from Indonesia to the Tamil Nadu wasteland of India, these students will bring their LAS and UIC experiences to new learning environments.
Chris Davis, a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology, will work with local archaeology students in Brazil as he tries to unlock the mysteries held in ancient archaeoastronomical rock art in Brazil's Amazonian Monte Alegre hills.
Davis first came in contact with the Brazilian cave wall art three years ago while on a research expedition with archaeologist and anthropology professor Anna Roosevelt, an expert on Amazon culture and history. The advisor on his dissertation, Roosevelt describes Davis as "a multifaceted person who combines a strong technical bent with a kind and humorous persona. Chris is a great teacher and student coach as well as a talented researcer."
Chris Davis, PhD candidate in anthropology, describes the scene in this photograph as, "Open-air rock art at the site of Serra da Lua (Mountain of the Moon) on the mountain chain of Erere. Despite the name implying a moon association, this is the spot we were researching to verify that the sun images here are in relation to the winter solstice sun setting. We took these photos on December 22 at sunset and the sun was to my left/behind me. The paintings are oriented toward this event. Some of the other designs possibly depict the moon as well as hand prints, animals, etc."
"The images I saw intrigued me," Davis said. "They seemed clearly solar and lunar, but also had personified images with designs that included shooting stars and comets. We don't know anything about the people, but the images suggest an understanding of the many forces of nature. That intrigues me. Why did they record these images?"
Davis has subsequently returned to the region over the past three years and discovered new rock art sites, suggesting that there is even more to be uncovered.
Davis’s project, titled “The Prehistoric Mind’s Sky-Archaeoastronomy in Rock Art at Monte Alegre, Brazil,” includes analysis of prehistoric painted images of stars, the sun, moon and the calendar. This research is particularly groundbreaking in that Davis is able to date it to between 11,200 and 10,500 years ago, marking it as some of the earliest known rock art in the Western Hemisphere.
From working to build a solar-powered internet café in Uganda to marching for immigration reform to a Fulbright year in India, Daniel Schneider thinks globally.While Chris Davis climbs his way through the mountains of Brazil, Daniel Schneider, an LAS and Honors College graduate, will spend 10 weeks studying Hindi at the Jaipur-based American Institute of Indian Studies. Schneider was awarded the Critical Languages Scholarship from the U.S. State Department. After completing his language immersion studies this summer, he will remain in India to continue his Fulbright fellowship.
Schneider graduated last December with a perfect 4.0 grade point average in anthropology. He was an active participant and leader in student organizations, including Project FOCUS, which is currently working to install a solar-powered internet café in Lyantonde, Uganda. He also helped to organize students in Chicago and Washington to push for comprehensive immigration reform. Additionally, Schneider has actively been working with Professor of Anthropology Crystal Patil on her study of patients’ experiences with sickle cell disease (See "Giving Voice to the Voiceless").
Schneider’s interest in an anthropological study of India came after taking a course on culture and colonialism in South Asia taught by Mark Liechty, associate professor of anthropology and history.
"It wasn't until after Professor Liechty's class that I began to think about India in an anthropological framework. My curiosity was piqued by ways in which history is used as a political symbol," he said.
Schneider hopes his language training will help him research India's political landscape, which he hopes will yield clues to political and social behavior applicable to understanding events in other countries, including the United States.
"India is unique because there are parts of it that have been controlled for the last 50 years by communist politicians, [while] others have been controlled by strictly neoliberal governments. Consequently, this political diversity has created a unique social atmosphere with similarly diverse social movements."
Brett McNeil turned his energy and talent for journalism into a new passion for teaching others. Brett McNeil, a May graduate in the Master of Arts in the Teaching of History program, will also be flexing his linguistic muscles. McNeil was awarded an English Teaching Assistantship through the Fulbright Fellowship Program which will take him to Indonesia in August.
"Indonesia is home to hundreds of languages and dozens of ethnicities, and is a real and functioning, yet still developing, democracy in Southeast Asia. Indonesia's a fascinating cultural, religious, ethnic and political stew, and I can't wait to see it," he said.
McNeil will provide 20 hours of classroom instruction per week while in Indonesia. In addition, he hopes to pursue cultural exchange activities and participate in adult sports leagues. McNeil, an avid hockey fan, also hopes to volunteer with sports teams at his school.
McNeil previously worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Wednesday Journal in Oak Park, but decided on a career change to teaching. At UIC, he was a founding member of the UIC History Teacher Club in 2009.
"Journalism taught me to ask questions and listen to the answers," he says. "That's a foundation for good teaching. I decided to become a teacher because I was seeking a return to my roots in community service—that's why I originally became a reporter—and I couldn't think of a better way to make a real and lasting difference in people's lives," said McNeil.
2008 Riddle Prize recipient Oisin Kenny will spend the next year in the Indian desert studying the potential for local agriculture to provide sustainable biofuel alternatives. Oisin Kenny, a 2008 magna cum laude graduate in economics and that year’s recipient of the Donald and Leah Riddle Prize, will study an Indian wasteland development program in Tamil Nadu to learn how local agriculture may help mitigate global climate change.
Kenny will focus on local cultivation of jatropha, a plant used to produce biodiesel fuel, which also happens to resist drought and sequester carbon. Some questions have been raised about whether the crop has been over-hyped as a panacea and some worry that planting it instead of food crops may increase food insecurity and promote deforestation.
Kenny hopes to determine if cultivating jatropha on the unfarmed Tamil Nadu wasteland will sequester enough carbon to make it a viable project.
"I don't believe the Tamil Nadu Wasteland Development project was deliberately designed as a climate change adaptation plan," said Kenny, "but everything it is doing goes a long way to preserving the people’s way of life and empowering them to find opportunities in dire circumstances."
In order to complete his research he hopes to link up with experts from the local agricultural university and to start a project for local youth interested in farming.
"If I can succeed in sparking the curiosity and curbing the skepticism of the youth, hopefully they'll take it upon themselves to continually engage the sages and community leaders as they foster the knowledge for climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Adapted from multiple UIC News Bureau press releases by Paul Francuch, April 6, 2010, April 28, 2010 and May 4, 2010, and by Brian Flood, May 4, 2010. Additional information from a Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest article by Ken Trainor, May 25, 2010.
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