Site Visits, 14th February

Re site visits & weather on Wednesday, please remember to check your e-mail on Wednesday morning (prior to your scheduled visit) and to call campus to check on the opne/closed status of the university. If the university is closed, or is opening late, according to the recorded message on the university number, we shall not undertake the site visits.

If there is no message re closure or late opening on the university number (703-993-1000) then look out for a message from Professor Scott. If road conditions seem uncertain or dangerous to NCLC 130 faculty, then we shall cancel the site visits, even if the university is open. But you do need to check your e-mail early to make sure that if the visits do go ahead, you reach the appropriate site at the appropriate time.

Finally, here's the link to the notes on web design I showed in class today: http://classweb.gmu.edu/nclc130/s07/nclc130s07webdesign.html
I've requested the lab. for the second part of Thursday afternoon's seminar, and I'll let you know as soon as I receive a confirmation (or not!).

Enjoy the evening...

Reading and Discussion, 13th February

Please do read the whole message, as site visit information is below.

Thanks very much for a very enjoyable and informative discussion today. I also appreciated your close attention to the observation of Codex Espangliensis, and the many fascinating comments I overheard. Hang on to your ideas for your integrative essay. If you want to discuss the book inyour photo essays, or its techniques/images, here's the citation information:

Codex espangliensis : from Columbus to the border patrol / by Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Enrique Chagoya, Felicia Rice. San Francisco : City Lights Books, 2000

For tomorrow, let's discuss Azevedo and Ferguson initially (readings left from today), and then move on to the readings and images from Overfield's Sources of Global History. Have quick review of Pratt, in the light of today's viewings and readings, too, for seminar tomorrow.

Extra Credit

Here's the first option for extra credit, if you are interested, If you decide to attend, and wish to count it for credit, you need to write a reflection of 750 - 1000 words about the event, explaining what and how you learned from it, and how you might apply your learning to a) your work in NCLC 130 and b) your future learning.


On behalf of the George Mason Project on Immigration, the African
American History Month Board, and the African Student Union, we would
like to invite Mason students, staff, and faculty to attend a profound
event. On February 6th at 4 p.m. please join us in Student Union II
ballroom for a panel discussion, Children Affected by War: Transcending
from Victimhood to Active Peacebuilding. The African Student Union has
planned an inspiring program featuring dynamic young refugee speakers
who are now local, national, and global leaders. Many of them will talk
about their experiences in conflict zones as teenagers. These young
adults include:

Grace Akallo, a World Vision spokesperson, was kidnapped October 9, 1996
at the age of 14 by the LRA, along with more than a hundred of her
classmates at St. Mary's College in Aboke. For seven months, Ms. Akallo
was held in captivity by the LRA, held in bondage as a child soldier and
given as a 'forced concubine' to a senior LRA commander.

John W. Leek from Southern Sudan, one of the �Lost boys of Sudan�; John
came to the US in 2001 from Northern Kenya where he lived in the Kakuma
refugee camp from 1992-2001.

Monique T. Bagirimvano is the President of the African Students
Association at George Mason University. Monique is a Rwandese born in
the USA and raised in Rwanda, where at the age of 14, she was confronted
with the realities of civil war.

Kimmie Weeks, founder and director of Youth Action International, has
worked to alleviate poverty and human suffering in Africa and around the
world since he was fourteen. Weeks was born in Liberia, West Africa in
1981. At the young age of nine he came face to face with civil war,
human suffering, and death. These experiences encouraged Kimmie to
follow a path where he could make a difference and ensure a world where
all children have access to food, medicine and shelter.

Betty Bigombe, one of the leaders in the field of conflict resolution,
will also join us. Ms.Bigombe has been instrumental in negotiations
between the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army in 1994
and in 2004-2006. She is a former Ugandan government parliamentarian,
World Bank consultant, and senior fellow at the United States Institute
for Peace.

We hope you will join us for this unique and timely celebration of
African American History Month. This initiative will explore the
experiences of war and violence through the eyes, voices and personal
memories of the youth who lived through and experienced them. Such a
process will empower, educate and engage Fairfax and GMU youth and the
general populace about contemporary issues facing Africa.

Darfur: Information

Basic Summaries

Sudan: A Nation Divided

Darfur: A Quick Guide

Conflict in Darfur: Pictures

Background on Darfur
SaveDarfur.org

Chad/Darfur Emergency
UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency)
(Search the UNHCR web site using the search term, Darfur, for some of the most consistent coverage of the succesive crises in Sudan preceding, as well as including, the genocide)

Sudan
Human Rights Watch

Medecins sans Frontieres
Search the above page, using the search term, Darfur, for humane, thoughtful coverage of the genocide

Articles

So How Come We Haven't Stopped it?
John Prendergast

Tragedy in Darfur
Alex de Waal

Dying in Darfur
Samantha Power
(one of the most comprehensive overviews, available through the Proquest database)

Making Famine in Sudan
David Keene
(Very useful geo-political and economic background on the current crisis - isolates some of the longer-term preconditions to the genocide)

UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Reading Correction

One of the readings for tomorrow, "Either/Or...But/And," was located incorrectly in the readings. You will be able to find this reading online, and I've also added the link to the day-by-day section of the web site.

Personal Identity

The extract below from a set of philosophy class notes online might prove useful to you in unpacking some of Olen's ideas about personal identity when you come to write your collaborative essay and complete your art project.

Although entitled The Survival of the Soul, it does discuss different philosophers' views of what constitues the essential "person" and its persistence over time and with and without the body. No obligation to use...but it's there if you need it.

Week One

Thanks, everyone, for a very enjoyable week one of NCLC 130. I'm planning to post here reminders about assignments and class activities, supplementary material related to our discussions or classwork, and any other information that might prove useful in your completing successfully NCLC 130. Have a good week-end!