TEFL in Ecuador at "A Taste of Study Abroad"

Linda Ellersick who studied in Ecuador represents the Teaching English as a Foreign Language program in Cuenca. This is an intensive 6-week course in summer session one.

International Street Fair 2008

The Organization of Latin America (OLA) faced a very windy day with their colorful booth on May 17. Nicaraguan Tatiana and Peruvian Hernán man the booth in the early hours. OLA explained their mission to promote awareness of Latin American issues throughout the day, while they sold some typical crafts from various countries. They also raffled off two Mexican piñatas and taught children how to make maracas and Ojo de Dios.

Student Budget Worksheet
for study in Brazil on Portuguese Language and Culture

Program Dates: June 29 - August 2, 2008

Billed by OU:

Program Fee includes: International Health Insurance, lodging, in-country transportation, and instructional and administrative costs

Total Out-of-Pocket Costs:*

 Click here to download program description.

*Please note that the above out-of-pocket costs are estimates and based only on funds needed to participate fully on the program. Prior to departure you should adjust your individual budget to include the cost of additional travel and/or time spent abroad.

7th Annual Ohio Latin Americanist Conference in Retrospect
(Linda Ellersick)

The Latin Americanist Conference this year took place at Ohio University in Athens after being held at Ohio State University for six years. There was an amazing turnout of students and professors alike from different parts of the world, specializing in various areas of study. Each session was packed beyond its limits. As an Ohio University graduate student in the Latin American Studies department, it was nice to have the “home court advantage.” It was the first time many of the students from Latin American Studies, including myself, and other departments presented proposals for areas of research. It was definitely an advantage to be familiar with the rooms, space, and technology available. With several different topics being discussed throughout the day, such as literature, economics, immigration, politics, art, and human rights, the conference offered something for every interest in Latin America. The keynote speaker at lunch, Eliana Rivero, presented a topic of Latin America relevant to everybody’s lives—media, specifically television. This really showed the diversity of Latin American subjects in today’s world. The success of this year’s Latin Americanist Conference raises excitement for at least the next two future conferences to be held at Ohio University.

OLAC Student Essay Prize Awarded

Dr. José Delgado and Dr. Betsy Partyka are thrilled to announce that this year’s OLAC Student Essay Prize sponsored by OSU’s Donna Guy will be awarded to: Melanie Miller of OSU and Julia Nogueira of OU. Both of these papers were outstanding both in their format and content. We look forward to offering this prize again at next year’s conference.

Miller: The Discontinuance of Environmental Technologies in the Humid Tropics of Costa Rica: Results from a Qualitative Survey

Nogueira: The Centenary of the Discovery of Chagas Disease: Creating a Prevention Communication Strategy

Click HERE to see photos of Latin American Studies Events.

The Autonomous Sex: Female Body and Voice in Alicia Kozameh's Writing of Resistance

This thesis analyzes Pasos bajo el agua (Steps under Water) and Bosquejo de alturas (Impressions of Heights), texts from the Argentine writer Alicia Kozameh, as examples of an embodied l'écriture féminine. The reading of the literary texts through the theories of French feminists Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Michel Foucault, respond to the main arguments of the thesis. First, women empower themselves through language within power relationships established in patriarchal societies; the empowered female language is written through the female body. Second, l'écriture féminine is a style of writing not exclusive to women; it is part of heteroglossia and can be written by any person, regardless of the sex. Third, l'écriture féminine is a legitimate voice in social discourses, deconstructs the male/female dichotomy, and establishes a horizontal and dialectic relationship between different discursive voices. Finally, heteroglossia contributes to the reconstruction of gender relationships.

The Brazilian Shoe Industry and the Chinese Competition in
International Markets

Pedro Kayser's thesis is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the performance of the Brazilian shoe industry in international markets. The central questions asked how Brazilian shoe exporters perceive the Chinese competition at their main target markets, and how they perceive their advantages (or disadvantages) in international markets with regards to several marketing activities. Data was collected from primary sources, interviews, and from a survey with shoe exporters from Brazil s main shoe productive areas.

Economic Specialization in Sugar Cane Wage Labor: Ethnographic Case Study of a Rural Nicaraguan Community

Mike Elliott has successfully defended his thesis on the sugar cane industry in Nicaragua. His thesis looks at how larger trends like neoliberalism and globalization have interacted with the legacy of Nicaragua's agrarian reform in shaping livelihoods at the community level.  In particular, the experiences of the members of Valencia, a former agrarian reform cooperative, are analyzed and contrasted with the realities of people in nearby communities.  The study concludes that local characteristics and decisions have combined with macro-level influences in leading to increasing rural differentiation in Nicaragua's post-agrarian reform era.

Internship awarded:

First year LAS graduate student Lauren Cutcher has been awarded an internship in Argentina. She will be spending eight weeks in Buenos Aires, Argentina working for the human rights organization Madres de Plaza de Mayo. Additionally, she will be doing research and interviews for her Master's thesis, "Human Rights Policy After the Dirty War: Argentine Society and the State (1983-1989)", that will explore the relationship between the state and civil society and its impact on human rights policy. Madres de Plaza de Mayo is a human rights organization that was founded during the Dirty War (1976-1983) by a group of mothers searching for their children who had been kidnapped by the military. She is very excited about this opportunity to explore and get to know Argentina better. She will also find time to do a bit of traveling!

This month’s LAS faculty profile features:

Dr. Ann Freter-Abrams

Dr. Ann Freter-Abrams is a professor of anthropology here at Ohio University.  She started teaching in 1986.  She and her husband, Dr. Elliot Abrams are one of the first couples hired nearly simultaneously to the Sociology and Anthropology department.  Her academic career began in math and chemistry at the University of San Diego, but while completing her undergraduate studies she became captivated by the field of anthropology and changed her focus.

She earned her Master’s degree at the University of Houston, writing her thesis on the socio-political lineages of the Quiche Maya.  Her research was based on ceramic markers and artifacts.  She examined these in the lab while living in Santa Cruz de Quiche for three months until her group was asked to leave the region due to political upheaval in 1979. 

Dr. Freter-Abrams continued her academic career completing her doctorate at Penn State.  Her area of focus was on the rural settlements at the Mayan center of Copan.  Her dissertation specifically looked at the Mayan collapse by surveying the 4705 mounds outside the urban center of the city.  The popular argument, at the time she wrote her dissertation, stated that the collapse of the Maya was relatively quick.  Through her research she proved that it was more protracted, lasting up to 400 years as opposed to 200.  Initially her research was viewed as controversial, but is now commonly included as a reference to the research being done on the Mayan collapse.

She has continued working with the data from Copan, putting it into GIS (Geographical Information System) to do more complex ecological analysis. 

While teaching, Dr. Freter-Abrams engages her students by way of her abundant knowledge and experience, demonstrating a sincere enthusiasm of the field and the development of her students.       

Her current courses are:

ANTH 345/545           Gender Cross-Cultural Perspective
ANTH 367/567           South American Prehistory
ANTH 378/578           Human Ecology
ANTH 363/563           Gender in Prehistory
ANTH 494/594           Seminar in Human Ecology

Click here to see past faculty profiles

Welcome Incoming Students
for 2008-2009!

Click here to see the list of incoming students.

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