CALL FOR PAPERS

FOODWAYS: DIASPORIC DINERS, TRANSNATIONAL TABLES AND CULINARY CONNECTIONS

Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto

Please join us for the 2012 Annual Conference of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto

Thursday October 4 – Sunday, October 7, 2012
Abstracts due: March 16, 2012

More information on the conference can be found on the Diasporic Foodways blog

Click here for online submission of abstracts and registration. (see below for instructions)

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Description:
This conference seeks to address questions surrounding the dynamics of the food ‘we’ eat, the ways in which ‘we’ eat, the meaning ‘we’ give to eating, and the effect of eating in a transnational world. Recognizing that culinary culture is central to diasporic identifications, the focus is on the place of food in the enduring habits, rituals, and everyday practices that are collectively used to produce and sustain shared senses of cultural identity. Yet even as it does this work, food and the practices of production, preparation and consumption that revolve around it, cannot help but be drawn into wider cultures and cultural politics of consumption increasingly grounded in the pursuit of qualities of difference, acts of distinction and questions of justice. This focus on food, cooking, and eating in diaspora and its role in connecting and changing peoples, places, tastes, and sensibilities around the world yields insight not only to substances that people consider essential to the maintenance of identity, but to the production of new cultural political formations in a transnational world and to the role of cultural (re)production in the expansion of consumption under contemporary capitalism. A focus on food also reveals the dynamic role of historical pathways in understanding cultural formations as they have existed through time, and in positioning the present as a moment in a continuing process of structured mobility that directs the movement of people, what they eat, and how they understand themselves and the world around them. It also yields insight into the multiple places and ways in which food assumes value and how that value is often reliant upon the continued reproduction of ties that bind people, place, and practice across space and time. A great deal of academic work explores this interplay of food, practice, identity and subject formation, much of it bound together by a commitment that through a fuller understanding of those relations, we better understand ourselves, our pasts, and the complexities of the spaces and lives we inhabit and enact in a transnational world. This conference seeks to enhance that understanding.

Contact and More Information:

Please address organizational questions to rebecca.oneill@utoronto.ca with the subject line “Food Conference”

More information on the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies

Submitting abstracts:

We welcome contributions from scholars, activists, artists, advocates, government staff and food and agriculture practitioners and expect the meeting to have wide appeal across the Humanities and Social Sciences. Suggestions for papers, panel proposals, roundtables, posters and workshops should speak directly to the theme of the conference and can align with, but are not limited to, the examples of potential panels provided below.

To access the submissions page, you need to register for an account. Click on ‘Log In’ in the menu bar. This will prompt you to create an account. After you create an account you will be able to log in, submit abstracts, register (beginning late April), view accepted abstracts, and access the conference program.Abstradt will be reviewed and notifications of acceptance sent out by mid-April.

a.) Paper Panels: Panel proposals should consist of four papers addressing a common theme. Panel abstracts should include title and a 250 word (max) description, the names and affiliations of presenters, titles and abstracts of papers in the panel. Individual panelists are also required to submit their abstracts separately. They should indicate in a supplementary statement that the paper is attached to a panel and the title of the panel.

b.) Papers: Abstracts should be 250 words (max). If the paper is part of an organized panel, please indicate that and include the name of the panel in a brief (50 word max) statement. Each paper is allowed 20 minutes for presentation and discussion.

c.) Round Table Panels: We welcome proposals for round table discussions with a maximum of five participants. These should be oriented around a common theme and may include substantive audience dialogue. Abstracts (350 word max) should describe the theme of the session, the names and affiliations of participants and the format of the panel.

d.) Posters and Visual Exhibitions: Sessions should consist of visual material (posters, art, photography) displayed for viewing with opportunities for individual discussion with the authors/artists. Abstracts (250 word max) should include a description of the work and its relevance to the theme of the conference.

e.) Workshops: proposals (400 words max) should describe the theme of the workshop, its relevance to the theme of the conference, the intended duration (90 minutes or 180 minutes) and equipment/space requirements.

f.) Films: Abstracts (250 words max) should describe the film, its relevance to the theme of the conference, include the film length, and identify any special screening requirements.

g.) Other: This category is for types of presentations that are not covered by the above. Please submit a 250 word description of what you envision under the category “Other”.

Submitting Papers: We anticipate that a number of publications will arise from the conference in the form of an edited volume and special journal issues. Following the reviw of abstracts, participants interested in having papers considered for inclusion in conference related volumes will be asked to submit full papers online, before Sept. 16 at: http://ocs.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/CDTS/foodways/.

Registration: Please note that online registration will begin in late April, following the review of abstracts.

Possible Topics and Areas of Interest:

• The Transnational Kitchen: the role of food ‘professionals’ as transnational agents in shaping new foods, sourcing new ingredients, identifying and incorporating new ingredients and trends in preparation.

• The Syncretic Pot: Cooking in Transnational Spaces. The dynamics of foodpreparation in transnational spaces and the place of cooking in negotiating shared senses of diasporic identity.

• Transnational Food Spaces: A consideration of the kitchen, the dining room, the grocery store, the garden, the café, the restaurant, the school and the workplace as sites of transculturation, spaces in which disparate representations of ‘the other’ (and ‘other foods’) are encountered, and the reconfigurations of food, eating and identity that result from these encounters.

• The Diasporic Garden: explorations of the various modes and mechanisms of production and distribution required to supply the products integral to the social and commercial production of foodstuffs for diasporic communities; including the often-invisible spaces of backyard gardens, community farms, ethnic markets, etc.

• Am I What I Eat? Transnational Flows, Food and Constructs of Authenticity: Questioning the role of authenticity in sanctioning foodstuffs and how constructs and conceptions of ‘the authentic self’ change as people strive (and often fail) to reproduce ‘authentic’ cuisines.

• Affective Bodies at the Transnational Table: Considerations of the relations between the senses, affect, food, manners and etiquette and the disciplining effect of eating in embodying and performing the qualities integral to diasporic identifications.

• Culinary Foodways: Charting the adaptation, substitution, and indigenization of ingredients, foodstuffs, and methods of preparation across time and space.

• Food Memories: Considering the work performed by food in the reproduction of sociality, myth and ritual and practice that are core to maintaining the boundaries of diasporic communities and constructs of ‘home’, ‘away’, and ‘return’.

• The Food Dialogues: Exploration of the various channels (e. g., personal correspondence, popular culture, media, professional associations, social movements) through which the transformation of diet becomes a spatially iterative process.

• Enclave Eating and Cosmo-Multiculturalism: questions of the degree to which the ready availability of diasporic foodstuffs encourages or permits a ‘lazy’ engagement with multi-culturalism in which eating ‘the foreign’ or ‘the exotic’ is focused on the production of a distinctive self and displaces other more substantive or productive forms of engagement with difference.

• Fixing Food –In what ways are diasporic foods essentialized and does the necessity of maintaining “exotic” or “authentic” foodscapes produce a distinct diasporic burden, acting to fix migrant culinary cultures – with what outcomes and effects for foods and the creativity of their makers?

• A Doner Kebab with ‘the Works’ — identifying why and through what historical processes food becomes a mediator of ethnic identities produced in diasporic contexts.

• Where’s Little India? – a consideration of the role of food in the development of distinct “ethnic quarters”, the historical conditions in which such enclaves are produced and with what consequences for peoples working and living in those enclaves?

Local Arrangements and Organizing Committee (University of Toronto)

Ken MacDonald, Chair (Geography, CDTS)

Antonela Arhin ( CDTS)
Dan Bender (History)
Ben Liu (Centre for Community Partnerships; Geography)
Alexandra Guerson (History)
Rebecca O’Neill (History)
Kevin O’Neill (Religious Studies; CDTS)
Ato Quayson (English; CDTS)
Anna Shternshis (Germanic Languages; Jewish Studies; CDTS)
Nick Terpstra (History; CDTS)

Advisory Committee

Lauren Baker (Toronto Food Policy Council)
Simone Cinotto, (UNISG, Pollenzo, Italy)
Ian Cook (Geography, Exeter)
Michaeline Crichlow (Sociology, Duke)
Harriet Friedmann (Geography, Toronto)
Rick Halpern (History, Toronto)
Josee Johnston (Sociology Toronto)
Minelle Mahtani (Geography and Program in Journalism, Toronto)
Sidney Mintz (Anthropology, Johns Hopkins)
Jeffrey Pilcher (History, Minnesota)
Krishnendu Ray (Food Studies, NYU)
Eleanor Sterling (Director, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History; Columbia University)
Penny Van Esterik (Anthropology, York)
Rick Wilk (Anthropology, Indiana)

Venue: Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea
Date: July 15–18, 2012
Application Deadline: March 16, 2012

Eligibility: Graduate students and recent PhDs interested in the transnational paradigm of humanistic inquiry and conducting research on topics related to the theme of the making and unmaking of borders of knowledge

The Flying University of Transnational Humanities (FUTH) is an annual summer school for graduate students and young scholars interested in the transnational paradigm of humanistic inquiry. FUTH takes its name and immediate inspiration from Polands Flying University, an underground institution that offered an alternative education outside the confines of state control and government censorship. The program is particularly concerned with developing critical understandings that resist the ideological and conceptual hegemony of the nation-state and the epistemological and hermeneutic conventions that support it. This does not mean that FUTH seeks to dispense with the national and construct a reified transnational with which to replace it, or to foster transnationalism as an ideological alternative to nationalism. Rather, FUTH aims to free our imaginations from essentialist approaches to the nation or the state and to offer new ways of thinking about the political, social and cultural order of the world, both past and present.

Started in 2010, the Flying University of Transnational Humanities is organized annually usually in the summer by the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture (RICH), Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea. FUTH consists of a series of advanced lectures, student presentations and feedback sessions where renowned scholars from RICHs partner and other institutions are invited to share their knowledge, insights and perspectives. Student participants are required to study the recommended readings in advance. They are also expected to present their own scholarly work related to the theme of each year. The official language of FUTH is English, although the possibility of trans-lingual practices is being considered. Graduate students and recent PhDs interested in the transnational turn in the humanities and social sciences are welcome to apply with a presentation proposal.

The third FUTH will take place at Hanyang University, July 15–18, 2012, under the title of Borders of Knowledge. As numerous empirical studies in intellectual history, sociology of knowledge, and history/sociology/anthropology of the social, human, and natural sciences have convincingly demonstrated for several decades, the production, dissemination and use of knowledge, though seemingly universal, are always embedded in specific social, cultural, and historical contexts. Often, the subject, the object and the modus operandi of knowledge are defined, construed, and constrained by (national) borders. Knowledge and its associated practices thus shaped may in turn reinforce, reproduce or redefine those very borders. How then, does knowledge travel across borders? Rather than following the nave modernist assumption that knowledge is spread because it is true and/or is channeled through universally transferable methodical practices, one should approach the travels of knowledge as themselves explananda rather than merely explanans for other phenomena. For instance, one may ask, what are the ways in which locally-produced knowledge is translated, adapted, appropriated, or contested in different local contexts? By the same token, one may also ask, how does knowledge, despite its local origins, come to acquire a proclaimed universality or globality? With such questions as a basis, the third FUTH in 2012 aims to provide graduate students and young scholars with a unique opportunity to critically examine the making and unmaking of the borders of knowledge including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and other forms of knowledge.

Lecturers (surname-alphabetical order)
Alice L. Conklin (Department of History, Ohio State University, U.S.A.)
Christian Fleck (Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Austria)
Sari Hanafi (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, American University of Beirut, Lebanon)
Johan Heilbron (Centre Europen de Sociologie et de Science Politique de la Sorbonne, France / Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
Michael Kim (Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Korea)
– And other lecturers will be announced soon.

Eligibility / How to Apply
FUTH 2012 welcomes applications from graduate students as well as recent PhDs of all fields who are interested in the transnational paradigm of humanistic inquiry and also currently conducting research on topics related to the theme of the making and unmaking of borders of knowledge. All student participants are expected to give a full paper presentation on their own scholarly work.

Applicants should fill out the form on our website (http://www.rich.ac/eng/fly/apply.php) and send it as attachment to hk.transnational@gmail.com along with their CV, research statement and an abstract of proposed presentation. The deadline for applications is March 16, 2012.

Costs / Accommodation
There is a registration fee of USD 80. While accommodation including breakfast and lunch will be provided, participants are expected to arrange their own funding for travel and daily living expenses. Partial travel grants may be awarded to a limited number of applicants.

(Ms.) Sunghee Hong, Academic Coordinator
Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture
College of Humanities, Hanyang University
Seoul 133–791, Korea
Tel: +82–2-2220–4624
Fax: +82–2-2298–0542
Email: hk.transnational@gmail.com
Visit the website at http://www.rich.ac/eng/fly/introduction.php?pageNum=5&subNum=1

The urban ecology of religion: growth and redevelopment in Seoul

With some of the largest and most spectacular megachurches in the world located in the City of Seoul, it is easy to find impressive the material prosperity and political power associated with contemporary Protestantism in South Korea. It is also easy to overlook the fact that in contrast, nearly eighty percent of churches in Korea are quite small, with only fifty to two hundred members in their congregation. There is much theological reflection and political critiques concerning the growing gap between the rich and poor, corporate megachurches and vulnerable microchurches. This paper addresses the politics of scale and urban religion as they relate to aspirations for—and against—growth and (re)development in Seoul. In particular, I will discuss critical ethnographic methods including some new ideas for researching religion (e.g. “circle the church”) in the city.

The Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia invites applications for a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change that will be located in the Department of Educational Studies. The Canadian Research Chairs Program (http://www.chairs.gc.ca) has been established by the Canadian Federal Government with the purpose of attracting outstanding researchers to the Canadian university system. The successful candidate will be expected to have a strong record of scholarship and a commitment to research leadership. Candidates for Tier 2 Chairs are described by the Canadian Research Chairs Program as ‘exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field’. This is a full-time tenure track position at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor.

We are seeking candidates who can contribute to multiple programmatic areas and who come with a broadly critical orientation. Specifically, candidates should be able to contribute to contemporary debates on the new social, political, cultural and economic configurations of racial inequality and the cultural and economic politics of racism in the context of globalization. We encourage applications from scholars representing a wide range of ideological, theoretical, methodological, and interdisciplinary approaches, whose expertise spans the following areas:

1. The study of racial inequalities and formations as inseparable from other social formations (e.g. class, gender, dis/ability, age, and sexuality);
2. Cultural studies of educational policies, practices and/or pedagogies;
3. Critical policy studies illuminating the cultural and ideological struggle in which education is located.

The Department of Educational Studies within the Faculty of Education at UBC is a multi-disciplinary unit that includes a rich, diverse group of researchers. A major emphasis of the Department is on issues pertaining to the social sciences and humanities, and global justice and equity across the spectrum of education, including educational institutions, communities, the workplace, and other contexts. As a place of scholarly excellence, we seek to fulfill major commitments to both undergraduate and graduate programs in education, enrolling large numbers of students at the magistral and doctoral level. Department graduate programs include specializations in Higher Education; Adult Learning and Education; Educational Administration and Leadership; Society, Culture and Politics in Education; and Indigenous Education.

The Faculty of Education within The University of British Columbia offers a comprehensive set of programs at the baccalaureate, magisterial and doctoral levels. In addition to the Department of Educational Studies, the Faculty includes the Department of Language and Literacy Education, the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education, the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, and the School of Kinesiology, as well as various cross Faculty initiatives including the Centre for Cross Faculty Inquiry. The Faculty is a leader in Indigenous Education. For further details about the Faculty, please visit our website at http://www.educ.ubc.ca.

Applicants’ proposed research program should address one or more of the priority areas noted above as well as the related goals and strategic strategies contained in UBC’s strategic statement, ‘Place and Promise’ (http://strategicplan.ubc.ca/).

UBC hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity. All qualified persons are encouraged to apply. All Canada Research Chair positions are subject to review and final approval by the Canada Research Chair Secretariat. Canada Research Chairs are open to individuals of any nationality; offers will be made in accordance with Canadian Immigration requirements associated with the Canada Research Chairs program. Interested individuals should send a CV, list of publications, description of proposed research and interests, and the names, contact information and qualifications of six referees to Dr. Blye Frank, Dean, Faculty of Education, the University of British Columbia, 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. The deadline for applications is April 15, 2012.

Released first and exclusively on Mighty Deals and our sister site, Webdesigner Depot, it’s an infographic vector kit, with the most used elements that you may need for your infographic designs.

Included in this set is a world map, gender elements, as well as multiple pie and bar charts. You can easily combine and modify all the elements to create a distinctive infographic.

Chair in the Study of Religion
http://www.universityofleedschairs.co.uk/humanities-study-of-religion.php

Chair in Philosophy and Religion (joint appointment in the School of Humanities)
http://www.universityofleedschairs.co.uk/philosophy-and-religion.php

Closing Date: 23 March 2012

Senior Lecturer / Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies (2 posts / area of expertise open)
With a view to complementing our existing staff team, we particularly wish to encourage applicants with research expertise in:

• New Testament, ethics and theology / New Testament and society
• religion / theology in global / postcolonial contexts (e.g. Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, South Asia, South-East Asia, China)
• religion and society
• the interaction of religion / theology with politics, ethics or science
• the study of contemporary Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Indian religions, indigenous religions

Job Details  > Closing Date: 3 March 2012

Further Information:
The University of Leeds is one of the UK’s foremost research-intensive institutions of Higher Education, and a leading member of the Russell Group. The University is committed to providing a world-class standard of student education, and achieving world-leading levels of research performance, in the context of a commitment to internationalisation, innovation and impact on a local to global scale.

Theology and Religious Studies (TRS) at Leeds is part of the School of Humanities, which has an annual turnover of around £8 million, generating strong surpluses. Support for all these and other appointments reflects the University of Leeds’ strong endorsement of the School’s strategy and trajectory. With a large staff and student body, and a strong commitment to disciplinary and cross-disciplinary excellence, as well as a burgeoning international profile, we offer one of the best contexts for world-class academics to develop their careers.

Ten academic staff in TRS work across historical, theological and philosophical, as well as sociological and anthropological approaches to the study of religion. The Institute for Religion and Public Life provides a common focus for our internationally-renowned research on religion and public life in late modern globalised societies. Recent externally-funded research projects have been concerned with the interdisciplinary intersections of religion/theology and development, diaspora, cities, policing, terrorism, the media and sexuality. Research-led learning and teaching ensures that this expertise is translated into outstanding opportunities for undergraduates as well as postgraduates.

Theology and Religious Studies as an academic field has vital contributions to offer the contemporary world, and at Leeds we are well placed to make such contributions in the future. Our key priorities are to continue our track record of internationally excellent publications; to develop ambitious research projects and grow our research income, building on outstanding success in the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society and AHRC Diasporas, Migration and Identities programmes; to strengthen and enhance our extensive international partnerships in research and teaching; to offer undergraduate and postgraduate students an outstanding learning experience, and to attract students of high potential to study with us; and to engage creatively and collaboratively with a broad range of local and global partners.

Participatory Geographies Research Group Away Weekend
18–21 May 2012
York, UK

For 2012, we have decided to run the ever-popular away weekend, with its mix of academic study, chill-out time and frisbee-ing, in a more central location.

We will be based at York Youth Hostel, which is in a quiet location with large grounds, by the riverbank, a short walk from the city centre and east coast mainline train station:
http://www.yha.org.uk/find-accommodation/yorkshire-wold-moors-coast/hostels/York/index.aspx

Anyone who wants to learn more about participatory geographies and meet others is welcome to attend. You don’t have to know anything already. Please pass on this email, as we would like to encourage new members and postgraduates to come along. A bursary scheme to cover the cost of accommodation and dinner will be available for a number of postgrads and others who can’t afford to pay for the weekend.

Sessions are informal and their content is decided by those attending, so please send in your suggestions and offers to organise one. In past years we’ve focused on a range of theoretical issues, methods for research and activism, institutional and personal issues involved in doing participatory research, etc. If you’re interested in something but don’t want to run a session yourself we can often find someone to do it. Suggested themes will be circulated (with a reading to kickstart thinking/discussion) before the weekend, but we also normally revisit/plan the agenda on the Friday night according to what people want out of the weekend. Here is a provisional schedule:

Friday evening:
Arrive. Welcome drinks kindly being hosted by Friederike Ziegler who lives close to the youth hostel. Firming up the agenda for the weekend.

Saturday:
Session 1
Lunch
Outdoor activity/free time
Dinner
Session 2

Sunday:
Session 3
Lunch
Leave

Bed and breakfast is £25.35 for Friday night and £25.35 Saturday night, and dinner on Saturday is £7.95 (all diets catered for). The total for the weekend per person is £56.65. On top of that we will ask for contributions to a self-catering budget for Friday night snacks and Sat/Sun lunches, and you can bring your own alcohol or use the bar at the youth hostel.

Partners and children are also welcome – there are a range of single, twin and family rooms as well as 6– and 8-bed single-sex dormitories; the smaller rooms will need to be booked early.

Email Prof. Rachel Pain (Geography, University of Durham) if you’re interested in attending.

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Cultural Studies (Social Activism in visual media and culture)
The Department of Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus invites applications for a tenure-track position within the Cultural Studies program. The appointment will be at the level of Assistant Professor and will begin on July 1, 2012.

Candidates must have a PhD in Cultural Studies or a related discipline, an active research profile, and evidence of teaching experience in the area of social activism in visual media and culture. This might include, but is not limited to the scholarship and practice of digital media, film, contemporary and street art. The position will include responsibility for the creation and or teaching of introductory, upper level undergraduate, and graduate-level Cultural Studies courses that may be cross-listed with courses in the Art History and Visual Culture program. Teacher-researchers whose scholarly focus is on issues of marginality (eg., gender, race, (dis)ability, and aboriginality) and who utilize intersectional critical approaches are especially encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will be expected to conduct and disseminate research in his/her area of specialization and to engage with the interdisciplinary nature of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.

The Cultural Studies program at UBC’s Okanagan campus is housed in the vibrant Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. The Cultural Studies program is organized around three thematic streams, and requires students to complete courses in each stream: Media and Popular Cultures; Global Cultural Studies; and Critical and Cultural Theory. The collegial learning environment of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies focuses on effective teaching, the integration of research, and a commitment to developing a locally involved and globally aware community. The Faculty offers both discipline-based and interdisciplinary programs at the undergraduate and graduate level, including programs in Art History and Visual Culture, Creative Writing, Cultural Studies, English, French, Interdisciplinary Performance, Spanish and Visual Arts, along with courses in Japanese, German, and Ancient Languages. More information on the Cultural Studies program can be found at: http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/critical/options/cultural.html More information about the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies can be found at: http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/creativeandcritical/welcome.html

Candidates are asked to submit a letter of application, complete curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, research plan, example of scholarly research to Dr. Jennifer Gustar, Head, Department of Critical Studies at the following address only: recruitment.fccs@ubc.ca. Candidates should also arrange for three letters of reference to be sent directly to Dr. Gustar at the same address. The deadline for applications and letters of reference is February 29, 2012.

UBC hires on the basis of merit and, being strongly committed to diversity within its community, especially welcomes applications from women, visible minority group members, Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity, and others who may contribute to the diversification of ideas. However, Canadians and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority.

These appointments are subject to budgetary approval.

December 14, 2011
Cocooned Trees, Pakistan
Photograph by Russell Watkins

An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiderwebs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were fewer mosquitoes than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods.

(This photo and caption were submitted to the 2011 National Geographic Photo Contest.)

National Geographic editor’s note: Based on our experience with this news gallery, it may be that the silk pictured here was not spun by spiders or at least not by only spiders.

American University Meets the Pacific Century Conference
March 9–10, 2012
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Many American universities, like top-tier universities throughout the world, are increasingly becoming global institutions, no longer held exclusively to national interests. What is the impact of the escalating numbers of international undergraduates and how are they transforming the American university? These questions will be examined on March 9–10, 2012 at the American University Meets the Pacific Century Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This conference will feature research from scholars in the United States, Great Britain, and South Korea.

The conference is hosted in association with the American University Meets the Pacific Century Project (AUPC, 2010-), an interdisciplinary team of social scientist faculty and students who are currently researching the internationalization of the undergraduate student body at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The project is principally interested in the American university as a contact zone in which record levels of international undergraduates, largely from Asia, meet American students whose futures are increasingly impacted by global transformations, the economic and scientific rise of Asia among them.

Please check http://aupc.weebly.com/aupc-conference-2012.html for more information and to register for the conference. It is free and open to the public. Please pre-register by March 1, 2012.

Accommodations are available at I-hotel as well as the Illini Union Hotel. A limited number of rooms have been blocked for the conference. Please mention American University Meets the Pacific Century Conference. Please also note that the block of rooms at the I-hotel will only be reserved until February 8, 2012.