From the Director

Hello Students, Friends, Alumnae/Alumni and Supporters of the ISF community!

We are approaching the last few weeks of the semester, and the level of creativity among our students could not be more impressive. Let me share a few stories with you:

“Open House” ISF 189

As you know, ISF 189 is our thesis preparation course, which ISF students are encouraged to take before enrolling in the thesis writing seminar (ISF 190 or ISF 195). In this workshop, students begin their thesis research, develop a bibliography, visit the library, design a research question and the methodology that helps them find the answer. Some of the ISF 189 students are now ready to give an overview of their research projects. Please feel free to join our seminar each Tuesday, 10:00-12:00 in 2 Evans.

Research Presentations include Noah Castro’s ‘The Globalization of Governance,’ Cesar Valdez’s ‘HIV/Aids in the Mexican migrant community’, Vanessa Ceja’s ‘Institutional Memory and the Information Age,’ Addison Cuneo’s ‘Medical Apartheid in Guatemala and the USA’, Carla Johnson’s ‘Disaster Planning for People with Disabilities,’ Jason Goldman’s ‘Eco-Partnerships,’ Ron Exley’s ‘The Music Industry in the Digital Age,’ George Entis’s ‘The European Union: Enlargement and Integration’, Daniel Azarkman’s ‘The self as linguistic construct’, Ireneo Calmon-Huang’s ‘Business Cultures in South Asia’ , Varun Bubber’s ‘Sentiments of Outsourcing’, Sarah Scher’s ‘Sex Policy,’ Xavier Erguera’s ‘Cultural Identity and Language,’ and Christopher Talbott’s ‘Economic Development.’

ISF 190 during Summer Session

ISF Students who plan to take ISF 190 in the summer should get in touch with Prof. Avaren Ipsen by no later than the first week of May. Prof. Ipsen will organize an informational meeting about ISF 190 in the very near future, and it is imperative that all students interested in the course attend.

Global Poverty & Haas Scholarship: Evarosa Holt-Rusmore

Quite a few students have been interested in the 'Global Poverty Minor,' a Minor which was initiated by Prof. Ananya Roy, Associate Dean of International and Area Studies. This minor is a perfect fit for many of our majors, among them Evarosa Holt-Rusmore. Evarosa’s proposed research deals with ‘The Anthropology of Poverty.’ In her ISF major, she is combining courses from Anthropology, Geography, and Peace and Conflict Studies. Her particular focus lies on ‘Youth Reintegration in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone.’ I was excited to learn that thanks to her proposed project, Evarosa has been granted the prestigious Haas scholarship. Congratulations indeed! After the end of the spring semester, Evarosa will fly to Freetown, where she will pursue most of the research for her Senior Honors Thesis.

EAP Report: Katherine Flannery

Katherine Flannery recently informed me of her astounding Education Abroad experience in Cape Town, South Africa. Among the many courses she attended at the University of Cape Town, she particularly loved ‘History of Southern Africa,’ ‘International Political Economy’ (with Robert Shrire) and a Masters Level Course on ‘Religion and Public Health in Africa.’  She lived in Rondebosch, which is located near the university and the famous Botanical Garden. While in South Africa, she traveled all around Southern Africa and visited Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, which – besides South Africa – she liked the most. It is, as she said, “the warm heart of Africa,” because its people are extremely welcoming. In South Africa, Katherine learned some basic Khosa, which came in handy when she traveled in rural areas. What is so exciting is the fact that Katherine is returning to South Africa this summer: she was offered an Internship with the Treatment Action Campaign, a major HIV/AIDS activist organization. This time around, she’ll live in downtown Cape Town, close to Parliament. The internship will help her prepare for her ISF Thesis, which will deal with external control mechanisms in relation to HIV/AIDS in an African region. In the long run, Katherine plans to pursue advanced studies in public health, combined with a law degree. She sees her future in international health policy making. Fabulous!

EAP Report: Christopher Erwing

Someone else had an extraordinary time, and more than that, as he said – albeit in another corner of the southern hemisphere. Christopher Erwing returned from Salvador Bahia, in the ‘nordeste’ da Braziu.‘ “What an eye opening experience it was,” he told me in my office, particularly since it was the first time he ever had left the United States. Now fluent in Portuguese, Christopher intends to learn other languages, including Singalese, the language of his mother. In Brazil, he studied several topics, among them the development of Afro-Brazilian culture (Brazil and the Black Atlantic), the history of South America, Precolonial History, the History of the Dictatorship in the 20th Century, Afro-Brazilian Art and Expression, as well as Candomble. In case you wonder what Candomble is, it pertains to religious forms introduced by slaves from West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade. In fact, these religious forms are still practiced today in the Congo as well as in many Brazilian cities, and they are linked to other forms of well-known religious practices such as Santeria. Christopher also studied the struggles of the Black working class population in contemporary Brazil. No one is going to be surprised, given the above information, that Christopher is presently writing his ISF thesis on a most relevant topic: the socio-economic impact of globalization on two sets of minority communities, namely the African American community in the Western United States, as well as the Afro Brazilian community in Northern Brazil. What are his long term plans? “I’d like to attend Law School and focus on the study of international law,” he told me. “Eventually, I intend work in the area of Third World Development Policy.”

News from ISF Alumns

A few weeks ago, I heard from Samra Ghermay. She has been accepted into the International Affairs MA program at the New School in New York. Congratulations! She is already looking forward to taking courses with Janet Abu-Lughod, whose Beyond European Hegemony we read in my course on Multicultural Europe.

I also heard from Brian Wei, who spent some time in Mongolia with the UN Development Program. Now, he is on his way to Darfur, before he starts a graduate program at SOAS, which is the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. His focus there will be on Globalization and Development. As he writes: “I'm off to Darfur for a couple of months with CHF International to develop a microfinance and business development services for the North Darfur and South Darfur States. I'll be based out of Nyala, South Darfur and El Fasher, North Darfur and will be going to remote rural areas and the IDP camps to see what sort of programs have been implemented by other organizations and what CHF can put in place. It is quite the change – I never would have guessed when I first came to Berkeley that my career path would take me in this direction. ISF really allowed me to take some great courses that I would otherwise not have taken.”

Ella Vivirito, who after her graduation worked for the YMCA and later for the World Trade Center in Oakland, has now been accepted into the International Affairs programs at both the University of Chicago's Graduate School in Public Policy and at the Johns Hopkins School of International Relations (SAIS). Just a few days ago, she decided to move to Chicago…an excellent program, and an excellent choice!

Finally, I also heard from Devin McIntire, who is engaged in business ventures in India. He writes: “A year ago I got on a plane for Tanzania...I've now been in Hyderabad, India for over two months. I'm currently spending all my time working on a start-up company, the incubation of a larger company founded by an Ashoka Fellow called “India Development Gateway”. We are building an online marketplace to help businesses, which are too big for microfinance but too small for traditional financial services, raise the capital they need to start their operation. It's a bit like Kiva.org but with much larger sums of capital and several other differences. I'm excited because it's addressing one of the largest structural barriers to local, sustainable development and it means getting entrepreneurs online, communicating with investors and taking advantage of existing internet resources.”

Everyone, have a great end of the semester. I’ll see many of you at the graduation. And for those of you who will not quite graduate yet, have a wonderful summer, and we’ll resume, with recharged batteries, in late August.

Your Prof

Renate