Rising Seas and South Florida

April 17, 2015 / environment / ,
"Panama City Florida" by digidreamgrafix at freedigitalphotos.net
“Panama City Florida” by digidreamgrafix at freedigitalphotos.net

In an earlier post, talked about the future of South Florida given sea level rises projected to reach between three and six feet by the end of the century. For me this issue is personal. Although I grew up in rural Southern Ontario, my parents are snow-birds, who spend half their years on the West coast of Florida. My mother, Phyllis Smallman, is a mystery novelist, whose novels are set in coastal Florida and feature a main character, Sherri Travis, who is a bartender. Every novel is named after a drink (check out Margarita Nights on Amazon, or download the free short story Bitty and the Naked Ladies) and evokes the character of these beach side communities. South Florida has so many hidden treasures, from the Morikami Museum and Japanese Garden to the shark feedings at Sandoway House. I love the area, and worry about its future. Recently the New York Times published an article, “Rising Waters threaten South Florida’s Future,” which …

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Book Review: Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe

October 25, 2019 / Asia, Theory / , ,

 

"God Of Art, Supreme God Of India Culture" by Sura Nualpradid at freedigitalphotos.net
“God Of Art, Supreme God Of India Culture” by Sura Nualpradid at freedigitalphotos.net

        Last fall I assigned Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe in my “Foundations of Global Studies Theory” class. The book was very challenging for most students, and I ultimately decided that it might be more appropriate for a graduate level course. At the same time, the work is a foundational text in Postcolonial Studies, which seeks to examine the ways in which Western intellectual history continues to shape programs and expectations in less developed countries. Chakrabarty argues that Western theories are both “indispensable and inadequate.” Inherent to most Western social science theory is the concept of historicism; in other words, there is one evolutionary model that societies pass through, which also happens to be that of Europe.  For this reason, most Western social theorists do not take religion seriously, nor do they necessarily question using Western concepts such as Marxism to understand the class consciousness of Indian workers. In this sense, Chakrabarty demonstrates the Eurocentrism that runs through Western social sciences. …

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In Honor of Halloween: Japanese Books on the Supernatural

October 12, 2018 / Asia / , , ,
"Japanese Paper Lanterns" by coward_lion at freedigitalphotos.net
“Japanese Paper Lanterns” by coward_lion at freedigitalphotos.net

Last Halloween, I discussed my three favorite authors of ghost stories and the supernatural. This Halloween, I want to talk about works on folklore and the supernatural in Japan. Because folklore reflects the fears, ideas and beliefs of a society, it allows us to have insight into social issues difficult to access by other means. For example, the Mexican legend of the Lost Island of Bermeja, which I covered in an earlier post, has reflected that nation’s perception of the United States. Similarly, Japanese beliefs in demons, monsters and ghosts have been reinterpreted by each generation, to give insight into the stories and issues that are meaningful for people of that period. …

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Handout for a Book Review assignment

April 17, 2015 / teaching /
"Book Stack On Wood Shelf" by vorakorn at freedigitalphotos.net
“Book Stack On Wood Shelf” by vorakorn at freedigitalphotos.net

Although I’ve adopted rubrics for all assignments, I also find that students sometimes need more information about my expectations than can be provided in a rubric alone if they are to complete projects successfully. I therefore usually have a handout that details how to complete the response paper, article review, etc. I’m posting here a book review guideline that I’ve used in my “Introduction to Latin American Studies” class. Obviously, the handout is pitched to introductory and sophomore students, who may have limited experience with book reviews. In my experience, although book reviews seem straightforward to faculty, they can be daunting for students. For this reason, this outline gives a great deal of detail about my expectations. Good luck adapting it to your projects. And if you are new the blog, check out the top ten most popular posts. Shawn Smallman, Portland State University.

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New syllabus for a hybrid Global Studies theory class

April 17, 2015 / teaching, Theory / ,

I’ve been teaching my courses as web-infused classes for some time, which means that I put key materials on-line: the syllabus, key terms for every class, a lecture outline, rubrics and readings. I’ve also used an online “dropbox” for students to submit their work. I’ve found that students really appreciate being able to read the lecture outline before class, and that they are more likely to read their papers if I give them feedback on-line. I appreciate that the system allows students to track their grades, so I no longer get the question, “Can you tell me what my grade is now?” And I never have to worry about losing a paper that a student has submitted. …

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The Greatest Fraud Ever? Artur Virgilio Alves dos Reis and the Portuguese Bank Note Affair

October 25, 2019 / economics, Europe / ,
"Grunge Flag Of Portugal" by domdeen, courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
“Grunge Flag Of Portugal” by domdeen, courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

In the aftermath of scandals involving Enron, Bernie Madoff and Countrywide Financial, the current period might seem to be uniquely plagued by financial wrong doing. But in sheer scale, it would be difficult to exceed the audacity of Artur Virgilio Alves dos Reis (1898-1955). After dropping out of an engineering program, he traveled to Angola, and used a fake diploma from Oxford to find work. After returning to Portugal, he was soon imprisoned for check fraud, which gave him the time to plan a larger crime. After his release from prison, his background did not stop him from engineering a financial fraud that was so ambitious that it contributed to the collapse of the Portuguese Republic in 1926, which led to the fascist regime of Salazar. In an age in which people doubt if the financial system is adequately regulated, Alves dos Reis perhaps represents a worse-case example. …

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New Discoveries

April 17, 2015 / Arctic, environment, Latin America /
"Big Glacier" by porbital at freedigitalphotos.net
“Big Glacier” by porbital at freedigitalphotos.net

It’s all too easy to believe that everything worth discovering has already been found, and that the age of exploration is over. But some recent discoveries make the point that it’s still possible to uncover something new. In Canada, Adam Shoalts discovered seven waterfalls while traveling on the Again River. In one case, he discovered the waterfall by hurtling over it, a roughly 40 foot drop. One photo of his canoe makes it clear how lucky he was to have survived. A number of people have argued that other travelers had encountered these waterfalls. It is difficult to imagine that the First Nations in this region, in particular the Moose Cree in the Western James Bay area, were not familiar with these obstacles to navigation. I sometimes suspect that during the height of the fur trade they may have had a better geographical knowledge of northern rivers than exists even now. Nonetheless, none of these waterfalls were on any map. As Shoalts told the BBC in an interview: “There’s still a lot of work left to be done. That’s reality,” said Shoalts. “Canada’s so vast. Even if I do this the rest of my life, all my work would still only be a drop in the bucket. We don’t know the world nearly as well as we think we do.” …

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Decriminalizing drugs in the Americas

November 15, 2018 / drugs, Latin America, security / , , , ,
Map of America by Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net
Map of America by Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net

I’ve talked before in this blog about the idea of decriminalizing drugs as some European countries, such as Portugal, have already done. What is surprising is the rapidity and momentum behind this idea throughout the Americas. In November 2012 both Colorado and Washington decriminalized marijuana possession. Indeed, in Washington State the police recently handed out Doritos (along with a new marijuana legal fact sheet) at a public pot smoking event. But events in these states represent only the vanguard of a much larger movement. …

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Book Review of Tom Koppel’s Mystery Islands

May 27, 2015 / indigenous peoples / ,
Hawaiian Sunrise by Liz Noffsinger
Hawaiian Sunrise by Liz Noffsinger

Over the last week I’ve been reading Tom Koppel’s book, Mystery Islands: Discovering the Ancient Pacific. Koppel is a writer based in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, who seems to have traveled to just about every island chain and community in the Pacific, albeit as a tourist. His previous book, Kanaka: the Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest looked at why and how Hawaiians came to participate in the fur trade in North America. In this work, Koppel looks at the Pacific as a whole, over a millenia long time-span. …

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Japan after Fukushima

April 17, 2015 / Asia, energy / , , ,
Image of "Japan " by jannoon028 at freedigitalphotos.net
Image of “Japan ” by jannoon028 at freedigitalphotos.net

This spring I taught an “Introduction to International Studies” class, which had 12 students in it from Waseda university in Japan. They are outstanding students, and I always feel that I learn more from them than they from me during the class. During some of my individual conversations with the students I was struck by the impact that the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami had on their lives. The subsequent nuclear accident magnified an already terrible crisis, in which over 15,000 people died. Now the country is also having to rethink its energy future, while dealing with nuclear cleanup. As Japan made the decision to close its nuclear reactors -now the subject of great debate- the entire country was plunged into efforts to conserve energy.

The quirky blog the Pink Tentacle (which now sadly seems to be inactive, as the last post was from April 2011) had a broad focus on everything from the graphic arts and history to science and technology in Japan For example, it has a collection of catfish prints created after the great 1855 quake. In traditional Japanese culture, earthquakes were caused by catfish spirits. After this nineteenth century quake a diverse set of catfish prints became bestsellers. In these prints, one can see a human mob chasing catfish for revenge, tradesman partying with the catfish (because the rebuilding brought them so much money), or the great god Kashima lecturing the catfish for having misbehaved. These prints are a great source for social history, as they show popular attitudes towards the earthquake’s social impact, and raise many questions. Why for examples, were prostitutes a particularly significant group depicted in some prints? …

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