TABLE OF CONTENTS

• PROGRAMS AND SCHOLARSHIP
  • July 22: Spotlight Vietnam
  • Register now for IGS Best Practices Conference
• GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, INTERNSHIPS & AWARDS
  • August 1:  Applications due for Research Chair at McMaster University
  • Apply now for Fulbright Scholar Program
  • September 15:  Proposals due for Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence
  • September 15:  Applications due for Helen and John S. Best Research Fellowships
• FEATURED WEB SITES
  • Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith
  • The Ottomans
  • EuroNews
  • NigeriaWorld
  • World Bank: Sustainable Agriculture
  • OECD Observer
  • EPIN
  • This World: One Day of War

Spotlight Vietnam
The UW-Madison CIBER is a cooperating sponsor of the upcoming "Spotlight Vietnam: Export Opportunities on the Horizon" program. Vietnam has become one of Asia's fastest growing economies, with growth of up to 8 percent projected for this year. U.S. imports into the country grew by over 25 percent in 2002 and more than doubled in 2003.

"Spotlight Vietnam" is a joint Wisconsin-Minnesota program that will introduce exporters to opportunities in Vietnam and to Vietnamese business culture. Robert Bannerman, principal commercial officer at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), will brief participants via videoconference on several Wisconsin industry sectors that have great potential for sales in Vietnam. Peter Sognefest, president of SEAMOC Inc., will be in Madison to discuss Vietnamese business etiquette.

The program will be held from 9:00-11:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 22, at the Pyle Center on the UW-Madison campus. On-site registration and a continental breakfast will be available from 8:30-9:00 a.m. The program fee is $20 in advance (by July 19) or $30 at the door.  Please contact Beng Yeap, Asia specialist, Wisconsin Department of Commerce, at 608-266-1480 or byeap@commerce.state.wi.us, with any questions.

Currently, the disciplines listed on the Classroom Connector site are American Studies, Communication, Economics, English, History, Political Science, and Sociology. In the near future, Educational Technology, Geography, Physics, and Social Work will be added.

The URL for the site is:   http://www.uwstout.edu/cas/socsci/classroomconnector/

Teachers are invited to visit the site, to consider some of the benefits of putting their students into direct contact with peers in distant places, and to register themselves as site users.

• Fosters curriculum development
• Gives teachers time to reflect on important issues.
• Develops a state-wide network of international educators
• Updates educators on important issues in the headlines
• Fosters stimulating exchanges between master teachers and leading university professionals
• Gives teachers criteria for evaluation and presenting controversial, contemporary, and difficult issues in the classroom in a balanced manner

A registration form can be downloaded at http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/gssi04.pdf

Please contact Yvonne M. Reyes with any questions or concerns at yvonne@uwm.edu or 414-229-3312.

Recognizing the multifaceted nature of global education, the conference will highlight innovative initiatives in a wide variety of curricular and program areas, including:

• Campus-wide strategic planning for internationalization
• General education curriculum
• Professional schools
• World languages
• International students and scholars
• Study abroad
• Faculty development
• Technology and international collaborations

• Conference Agenda:  http://www.uw-igs.org/userimages/draft_agenda.pdf
• Registration Form:  http://www.uw-igs.org/userimages/registration_form.pdf

If you have any questions, concerns, or preliminary inquiries, please feel free to contact Imre Szeman at szeman@mcmaster.ca.  A full description follows below:

For further information:

• Institute on Globalization:
  • http://globalization.mcmaster.ca
• Critical Theory and Cultural Studies:
  • http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~cstudies

Faculty and administrators from two-year, four-year and graduate institutions are invited to apply. Retired and adjunct faculty frequently receive grants as well.

Traditional Fulbright awards vary from two months to an academic year or longer. While foreign language skills are needed in some countries, most lecturing assignments are in English.

Application deadlines for 2005-2006 grants for which applications are still being sought:

• August 1, 2004 – Fulbright lecturing and research grants worldwide
• November 1, 2004 – spring/summer seminars in Germany, Korea and Japan for international education and academic administrators as well as for the summer German Studies Seminar

Under the Scholar-in-Residence (SIR) Program, interested institutions submit proposals to invite scholars to teach one or more courses and to be in residence for a semester or an academic year.  Proposals are welcome from individual institutions, as well as from consortia of two or more institutions.  Institutions can propose to invite specific scholars or, through CIES, request that Fulbright Commissions abroad recommend scholars in the particular fields they would like to develop.  Detailed information and proposal guidelines are available on the CIES website (http://www.cies.org) under the non-U.S. scholar programs.

The program application booklet mentions that proposals should be received at CIES on or before September 15, 2004.  It also mentions that for 2005/2006 extra funds will be available under the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program to support scholars from Muslim-majority countries in the field of Islamic history, culture, and society, broadly defined.

Contact persons at CIES are:

• Karen Watts, Senior Program Officer -- kwatts@cies.iie.org
• Rimma Karlin, Senior Program Coordinator -- rkarlin@cies.iie.org
• Contact person at the Fulbright Commission in Egypt, Rania Atef, Assistant Project Specialist -- ratef@bfce.eun.eg

The Best Research Fellowships offer stipends of $375 per week for periods up to 4 weeks, and will be awarded to support residencies for the purpose of conducting research which makes direct use of the Library. The Fellowships will be tenable from January 3 to December 31, 2005. The AGS Library, the former research library and map collection of the American Geographical Society of New York, has strengths in geography, cartography and related historical topics.

Applications must be postmarked by September 15, 2004.

For further information, write, call or e-mail the AGS Library, P.O. Box 399, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0399, Tel.  (414) 229-6282, E-mail agsl@uwm.edu.  Web site: http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/AGSL/best.html

Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith
    http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/silkroad/main.html
Pathways of travel have led to some of the most compelling and creative cultural exchanges in human history, and the Silk Road was one such pathway. Stretching from China to the Mediterranean, the Silk Road was actually a complex network of interconnected pathways that were influenced by a diverse set of civilizations, including those in China, India, and Turkey. While the area around the Silk Road was the subject of numerous archaeological digs for centuries, one amazing find was made in northwest China in 1907 by the explorer Sir Marc Aurel Stein. In a previously walled-up cave near Dunhuang, he came across thousands of manuscripts, paintings, and a few printed items that had remained unseen for close to a millennium. One document found by Stein in this cache was the world's earliest, dated and printed book, the Diamond Sutra. On this site, visitors can view a beautiful virtual version of this lovely work, which is one of the central texts of Indian Buddhism. As well as examining various sections of the work, visitors can listen to audio narration about different segments of the Diamond Sutra and read short pieces about the book. Visitors will also want to look through five themes addressed on the site, such as the development of the book, play on the Silk Road (dealing with various games and pastimes), and buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The Ottomans
    http://www.theottomans.org/english/index.asp
Taking on a subject as vast as the Ottomans and their empire is a formidable task, but that is exactly what Korkut Ozgen has done with this fine website dedicated to providing information about their long and colorful history. Mr. Ozgen is a graduate of Bogazici University in Istanbul, and is particularly interested in the non-Muslim communities of the Ottoman society. The site is divided into several primary sections, including those dedicated to Ottoman history, their military campaigns, and their art and culture. In the history section, visitors can read brief essays (accompanied with various historical visual artifacts) on the various periods of Ottoman history, from the 13th century to World War I. The arts and culture section is quite splendid, as visitors may learn first-hand about the amazing legacy bequeathed to future generations from the Ottomans in the areas of calligraphy, architecture, ceramics and carpets. The site is rounded out by a glossary of terms and an extensive reference section for those who would like to read more about the Ottomans.

EuroNews
    http://www.euronews.net
Created in 1992 in Lyons, France, EuroNews is a European Broadcasting Union initiative that was started by a group of European public broadcasters interested in providing European viewers with a diverse set of perspectives of regional and international news. The site will be of interest to anyone with an interest in viewing recent news briefs about a number of important topics of relevance, such as political affairs within the European Union, cultural activities, and technological innovations within various parts of the EU. Visitors can also view a weekly schedule for EuroNews, or elect to view the latest news update from EuroNews. As might be expected, the site may be viewed in a number of languages, including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian.

NigeriaWorld
    http://nigeriaworld.com/
Despite the fine coverage offered by the BBC and other news providers, finding detailed and up-to-date information about any number of African countries can be frustrating -- especially when looking for different perspectives on events that have bearing on international affairs and the like. Despite the presence of numerous advertisements, NigeriaWorld is a good way to find out about current events in the country and is a real boon for persons looking to stay current on the affairs of this region of Africa. From the main page, visitors can read news from each state in Nigeria, and browse news headlines and complete articles organized under such familiar sections as business, sports, arts, and politics. The site also contains feature columns that provide additional insight into Nigeria from such journalists as Tonye David-West and Rudolf Okonkwo.

World Bank: Sustainable Agriculture
    http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ardext.nsf/26ParentDoc/SustainableAgriculture?Opendocument
Various organizations and institutions have grown increasingly concerned with developing effective strategies for promoting sustainable agricultural systems, and the World Bank has done some good work in this area as of late. The requirements of sustainable agricultural systems require that they be environmentally sound, socially acceptable, and financially and economically feasible. This site provides information about the World Bank's different sectoral programs in this area, ranging from those dealing with aquaculture to those dealing with the subject of effective irrigation and drainage. Within each respective section, there is additional information about the World Bank's latest work in each area, along with several publications that will be of great interest to persons interested in these policies and agricultural analyses. The right-hand side of the site also provides recent publications of note, including significant works dealing with creating sustainable methods of the production of coffee beans.

OECD Observer
    http://www.oecdobserver.org/
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) publishes hundreds of technical reports, working papers, and development updates every year, and as a result it can be hard to stay on top of all the research the group is disseminating to the public. One way to stay on top of all of this material is by taking a close look at the OECD Observer, which is meant to complement the print version of the same name. Here visitors can browse such sections as economy, society, development, and government to find out the latest work being done at the OECD. Some of the more recent topics that have been addressed within the Observer's pages include the so-called knowledge economy, sustainable business practices, taxation, and governmental corruption. At the site, visitors may also sign up to receive email updates from the Observer.

EPIN
    http://www.epin.org
With the recent expansion of the European Union into Eastern Europe, there has been an increased level of interest around various policy issues in the region. The European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN) is one such organization that is interested in these pressing matters, and includes over 40 member think tanks spread across 28 countries. As the website notes, "EPIN aims to contribute to the debate on the Future of Europe through up to the minute, expert analysis and commentary and through providing easy access to understanding the different national debates." Given that rather weighty mission, it is not surprising that along with usual features (such a list of member groups, contact information, and so on), there are a number of very helpful and germane working papers, commentaries, and policy evaluations available here for visitors. Some of the more recent additions to the site include works such as "France, Germany and the UK in the Convention-Common Interests or Pulling in Different Directions?" and "Can the EU deliver the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice?".

This World: One Day of War
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/one_day_of_war/default.stm
The investigative news program titled This World is one of the BBC's many programs dedicated to providing in-depth coverage on a number of pressing issues around the world. Their recent project, One Day of War, follows individual fighters in 16 of the wars currently going on around the world over the same 24-hour period. The centerpiece of the site is the section that offers profiles of these 16 people, along with a complete transcript of the original program that aired at the end of May 2004. Some of the people profiled here include Shushila Magar, who is fighting with the Nepali Maoist Militia, and Nati Mazuz, who is a professional solider serving in the Gaza Strip. Also available is a commentary from the series producer on how the project came to be, and a clickable map where individuals can learn more about each region featured in the personal stories of each participant.