The MS-13 or Mara Salvatruchas is a Salvadoran street gang that emerged in the 1980’s in Los Angeles, California before spreading across the United States and back to El Salvador. In his November 21 Conversations Brown Bag presentation, titled “International Crime: An Introduction to the MS-13 Street Gang”, Dr. John Rodríguez of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, explored the Salvadorean origins of MS-13 and what factors have made it migrate back to Central America. He also tackled the question of why young people join gangs. This was our final Brown Bag presentation for the fall and it capped off a sensational semester of faculty presentations.
John Rodriguez (Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice)
International Crime: An Introduction to the MS-13 Street Gang
The theme of “Connections” is very much about interdisciplinarity. In The History of Love we find that the author has woven together science, philosophy, history and literature together. The Conversation Brown Bag series seeks to help the UTA community explore surprising “connections” between domains of knowledge.
On November 7, Dr. Christopher Kribs Zaleta (Department of Mathematics and Curriculum and Instruction) presented “The Dynamics of Peer Pressure” in the Conversations Brown Bag Series. In his stimulating and accessible presentation, Dr. Kribs Zaleta showed how mathematical tools originally developed to model the spread of infectious diseases have been used to study the emergence of collective behaviors such as cooperative learning, drug use, and grassroots political movements.
One of our most ambitious and exciting events was held this week. Here’s the UTA Shorthorn article on the visit by Dr. Spencer Wells to UT Arlington.
My name is Ritu Khanduri. I am a cultural anthropologist at UTA with a research and teaching interest in visual studies, globalization, citizenship, modernity, and South Asia. Each semester I offer Global Cultures, an introductory course in cultural anthropology. As part of my pedagogy I consistently seek curricular connections with on-campus programs. It is therefore, no surprise that I find the onebook program an ideal route to generate creative links between my course Global Cultures and various conversations that mark the onebook program. Where once cultural anthropology was about enchantment with the ‘other,’ it is now more about connections with the other and the ensuing disenchantment. This semester The History of Love is an optional read for our course. I have offered my students extra credit of up to 4 percentage points for participating in the onebook essay contest. Additionally, as part of their evaluation for this course, students will be writing a 500-word essay reflecting on identity. I will encourage students who have read The History of Love to reflect on their reading and connect it with the course material. Students have the option to finesse this essay as a submission for the onebook contest.
The 2008-9 themes, connections, love, identity, assimilation, and language for example, offer a particularly exciting framework for students in Global Cultures. These are themes we address in our course. Since cultural anthropology focuses on our everyday practices and encourages reflecting on identity and social hierarchy for example, as cultural constructions, I believe students of Global Cultures can make a unique contribution to this year’s onebook theme.
For more on Dr. Khanduri’s courses, go here. –Eds.
First, Dr. Ken Roemer of the Department of English spoke of DNA and identity in his brown bag lecture on September 26. Yesterday, in her Conversations Brown Bag presentation, Dr. Elena de la Casa Esperón of the Department of Biology explored the varied ways that human beings share DNA with each other, the environment, and other species. It was an exciting presentation with over 70 slides, including one of glowing green mice! After the presentation, Dr. de la Casa Esperón answered many questions and spoke to students, staff and faculty.
Download fullsize here: nov-brown-bags.pdf
Dr. David Silva, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, wowed a large audience of students, faculty and staff with his October 10, Conversations Brown Bag presentation “Communities Divided, Communities Connected: How Emigration Creates New Ways of Speaking”. David Silva explored the powerful ways in which language defines a community, connecting individuals at multiple levels. In his talk, he considered how changes in one’s speech patterns often signal changes in one’s identity by focusing on communities that have found themselves separated by time and space but still connected by common linguistic roots.
UTA President James Spaniolo and Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck
As you all know, the Conversations Theme for the 2008-2009 OneBook Program is “Connections.” This year’s OneBook, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, is full of rich examples of connections, between characters, themes, historical periods and geographical locations.
The OneBook Program was delighted when UTA President James Spaniolo and Mayor Robert Cluck of Arlington expressed interest in exploring the theme of “Connections” in relation to their own working relationship as community leaders.
The well attended event that featured their conversation titled “Connected Communities” took place on Wednesday October 8 at the MAC Lounge. It was fascinating to hear the behind-the-scenes story of how President Spaniolo and Mayor Cluck, and the ways in which they are so firmly committed to bringing the university closer together with the city of Arlington.
Here is a UTA Shorthorn article by Jason Joyce on this outstanding event.
UTA students pose with Mayor Cluck
On September 26, English Professor Ken Roemer presented “Making Connections: Identity Formation as Academic and Personal Adventures” to a packed audience in our Conversations Brown Bag Lecture Series. Dr. Roemer’s presentation explored the ways he teaches identity and autobiographical writing in his literature classes. The second half of his presentation explored Dr. Roemer’s own experiences exploring his own identity, through family stories, geneaology and DNA testing. Dr. Roemer’s presentation was the first in a series of presentations that deal with biology and our theme of 2008-2009 theme “Connections”.
Students, faculty and staff in attendance were fascinated by Dr. Roemer’s personal stories, photographs and documents, as well as insights into the ways in which people react to unexpected aspects of their own family history, contributed to an outstanding start to our Brown Bag Series.
Download full size flier: oct-brownbags.pdf
