The Dangers of Nuclear Energy: Japan, France and the US

April 17, 2015 / energy, environment / , , ,
"Nuclear Power" by xedos4 at freedigitalphotos.net
“Nuclear Power” by xedos4 at freedigitalphotos.net

There have been some intriguing articles recently about nuclear energy, which demonstrate the challenges entailed with obtaining power from this resource. An article in Reuters described how homeless people are being recruited to work in the nuclear cleanup in Fukushima, Japan, because few other people are willing to take on such a dangerous task for minimum wage. The people recruited for this work are not the highly trained and motivated, but rather the most vulnerable. Sadly, major criminal syndicates appear to be involved in the recruitment process, which has meant that there are serious failures in oversight and record keeping. Another article has described how the farmer Masami Yoshizawa illegally entered the forbidden zone around the nuclear power plant to save cattle abandoned when people were forced to flee in the aftermath of the disaster. He described a horrible scene of neglect, in which cattle died with their mouths in their feeding troughs, as they waited for their farmers to return and care for them. The government does not know what to do with Masami, and so he is not officially recognized as living there, even though (my favorite detail) he still has his electricity and his telephone turned on. The nuclear disaster continues to have a major economic impact on the country; for example, South Korea still refuses to buy Japanese seafood. …

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Energy Reform in Mexico and Brazil

November 15, 2018 / energy, Latin America / , , , ,
"The Offshore Drilling Oil Rig And Supply Boat Side View" by num_skyman at freedigitalphotos.net
“The Offshore Drilling Oil Rig And Supply Boat Side View” by num_skyman at freedigitalphotos.net

I’ve just returned from three weeks in southern Mexico, where the biggest political issue in the news has been the President’s energy reform plan. In 1938 Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the petroleum industry. This measure attracted popular acclaim in Mexico, and fury in the United States. While President Roosevelt was pressured to act, he knew that World War Two was coming, and had little interest in alienating a key neighbor. The state oil company PEMEX is now Mexico’s largest economic organization, and a source of national pride. When you travel in Mexico, all of the gas stations have the green stripe and red eagle of PEMEX. But now the company faces massive challenges. …

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Syllabus for a “Modern Brazilian History” class

April 18, 2015 / Latin America, teaching / , ,

I’ve been working to revise my modern Brazilian history syllabus, which I’m attaching here. If you are interested in Brazil, you might also want to look at my book on military terror in that country:

 

                                                       Modern Brazilian History

                                                           HST 463U/INTL 463U

                                                               MWF, 12:45-1:50

                                                        Neuberger Hall, Rm. 222

Professor Smallman

Rm. 345, East Hall

Phone: 725-9978

E-mail: drss@pdx.edu

Office hours: Friday, 10:00-noon

This course will explore such topics as slavery, abolition, messianism, banditry, the Amazon, race, military rule and democratization. Particular emphasis will be given to the differing visions the elites and the masses held of their nation, and how this tension has shaped Brazilian society.  By the end of the course students will have a better understanding of a Latin American culture, and how characteristics such as race and power are defined by history. …

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Syllabus for an “Amazon Rainforest” class.

November 15, 2018 / environment, indigenous peoples, Latin America / , , , , , ,
"Scarlet Macaw" by Elwood W. McKay III
“Scarlet Macaw” by Elwood W. McKay III

I’ve been teaching a class on the Amazon rainforest for about fifteen years now, which provides a brief historical overview of Amazonia, before examining indigenous and environmental issues. A few words about the books for the course: students love David Campbell’s, Land of Ghosts, despite his sometimes challenging vocabulary, because of his evocative descriptions. But be forewarned about Mindlin’s, Barbecued Husbands. This is a book of erotic myths from the southwestern Amazon. The first time I used this book in a class, I had a delegation of students come to complain that I was requiring them to read material with sexual content; I made the use of the book (and attendance in the class discussion) optional. I also had another student explain why they hadn’t read the book by saying: “I loaned it to my housemate at the start of the quarter, and he’s refused to give it back.” I continue to use it as an optional text, and on that basis have not had any more student complaints. …

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A large unknown mammal discovered in the Amazon

April 17, 2015 / environment, Latin America / , , , , ,
"Tropical Waterfall" by Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee
“Tropical Waterfall” by Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee

In an earlier blog post I discussed the fact that explorers and scientists are still making major new discoveries on our mysterious planet. If any still place holds many surprises it must be the Amazon. In 2009 I was staying in a lodge on the Rio Negro near Manaus, in the midst of the worst flooding that the Amazon had seen in sixty years. My wife and I took our two daughters down to the bank of the river. Swarms of small insects were attracted to the lights on the river bank. Fish would rise to the surface and surge up to catch the insects. And as we watched, a bat flew past and captured a fish, which hung twisting and flopping in its clutches. It happened so fast that I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed. I think that I began my sentence, “that almost looked as if that bat just. . . ” But a minute later it happened again, and there was no question. There really are fish-eating bats in the Amazon. But now scientists have found something not only amazing but also unknown- at least to outsiders. …

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PDX Scholar

April 17, 2015 / academia /

I have blogged before about the importance of open access journals to provide access to academic articles that too often wind up behind a pay wall or on a university shelves in another state or province. Recently my university developed its own response to this problem when it created a new database called PDX scholar, which allows the university to give free access to works by PSU academics and students, as part of the Digital Commons Network. For the top ten downloads, see here. You can also search by discipline, such as International and Area Studies. You can also seem some of my publications in International Studies here. Of course, not every journal or publisher gave permission to place material on-line. But it has some of my presentations, book reviews and abstracts. I hope that other libraries can also adopt this approach, and help to break information out of their current silos. Shawn Smallman, Portland State University

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Rubric for a book review of a novel

May 27, 2015 / teaching / , ,

I want to share a rubric for book review that was developed by Rosie David, an outstanding graduate assistant in our International Studies program at Portland State University. Rosie improved upon a rubric that I had shared with her by rethinking the categories, and creating very detailed guidelines for each section. I hope that this may be useful to some of you in your classes. Prof. Smallman, Portland State University …

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New Trends in Global Education

April 17, 2015 / academia /
"Kings College" by Phil at freeditigalphotos.net
“Kings College” by Phil at freeditigalphotos.net

Just two years ago, people were predicting that the global education system would change dramatically because of the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Universities across North America created centers for innovation and technology, and senior administrators warned their faculty that they were now competing in a global marketplace, where their students might be farmworkers in the Amazon. But it hasn’t turned out that way. Of course, it’s very early to judge the future of MOOCs. But at the moment, the time seems to be flowing out as quickly as the wave of innovation came in. Steve Kolowich has an article in the Chronicle of HIgher Education that describes how Sebastian Thrun, the founder of Udacity, says that he has a “lousy product.” The completion rate for people taking MOOCs is terrible. Those people who do finish these courses, for the most part, are the most privileged students, for whom access to education was never an issue. So what does this mean for trends in global education? …

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Cicada 3301

December 7, 2018 / mystery, security / , ,
"Cicada" by thawats at freedigitalphotos.net
“Cicada” by thawats at freedigitalphotos.net

I have covered many international mysteries on this blog, such as the strange story of the Arctic Sea, the puzzle of the Vela Incident,and the peculiar case of the ghost ship the Baltimore.  I’ve noticed that these posts usually are among the blog’s most popular. I don’t think, however, that any of these mysteries perhaps is as strange as the new puzzle of Cicada 3301. If you are curious, you will want to read Chris Bell’s account in today’s National Post. Bell describes how amateur cryptographers and hackers were enticed by a message in an internet forum called 4chan in January 2012, which appeared to contain hidden information encoded in the form of steganography. Those who tried to solve the problem soon walked through a door into an Alice of Wonderland world, with multiple cryptographic challenges. This puzzle was posed by an organization (almost certainly not an individual) with eclectic interests, which ranged from Mayan numbers to a British occult figure. How many groups would include references to medieval Welsh literature and King Arthur in the midst of an advanced cryptographic mystery? What was most staggering about this project was not the skills of the individuals involved -although they were prodigious- but rather the fact that their motive and identity both remained unknown. They appeared to be recruiting for some secret organization. Guesses about its identity have ranged from the NSA to the hackers group Anonymous. It could be a government agency, organized crime or a private firm. Some people even argued that this was an alternative reality game. But if so, it would have taken a group with immense resources (or that was very skilled at mass collaboration) to pull it off. …

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What is International or Global Studies?

June 24, 2017 / teaching /
"Planet Earth" by xedos4 at freedigitalphotos.net
“Planet Earth” by xedos4 at freedigitalphotos.net

One of the most common questions that faculty in International or Global Studies hear is: “What is International Studies?” In the past I used to begin to answer by talking about the history of the discipline, to explain that it is distinct from International Relations in Political Science. If I was really ambitious, I might have talked about the emergence of interdisciplinary programs in the 1960s, and how post-structuralism created spaces for diverse methodological approaches. In my experience over the last 20 years, this is not a successful way to define our discipline. So now I have a simpler answer. …

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