Institute to host international visiting professors

Member programs of the International Institute will host six distinguished international scholars next semester.

The scholars will teach courses, give public lectures, participate in Institute research circles, and meet with faculty, staff and students.

“This is a wonderful group of outstanding scholars who will contribute significantly to campus intellectual life across several area studies and disciplines,” says Catherine Meschievitz, the institute’s associate dean.

Three scholars will be funded under the auspices of the Institute’s new International Visiting Professor Program. And three more scholars will be funded by the Tinker Foundation which promotes the interchange and exchange of information among those concerned with the affairs of Spain, Portugal, Ibero-America and Antarctica. (For more information, see: http://fdncenter.org/grantmaker/tinker/).

Meschievitz says the scholars will not only serve as excellent resources for students and faculty but may also come away from their semester here with new ideas and perspectives that will extend their scholarship.

The visiting professors are:

• Mochtar Pabottingi of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences is one of Indonesia’s leading political scientists. In addition to his scholarly accomplishments, he has a long and courageous record as an outspoken critic of the Suharto regime. In Madison, he will teach a course on “Democratization in Indonesia.” His visit is sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
• M.S.S. Pandian, a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in India, is one of the most versatile and learned scholars of “history-from-below” in Tamil Nadu today. A serious public intellectual, Pandian writes, in both Tamil and English, for newspapers and other publications. He will teach a course on “Colonialism, Culture and Power: Themes from South Asia.” His visit is being sponsored by the Center for South Asia.
• Patrick Harries, associate professor of history at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, focuses on the formation of modern identities in southern Africa, a new and important area of research. He will teach a class on “The History of Africa.”

The Tinker Professors are:

• Roberto Vizcaino Guillot, a highly respected Cuban percussionist, teacher and performer, is an adjunct professor at two of Cuba’s leading institutions for higher music education – the Instituto Superior de Arte and the Amadeo Roldan School of Music. He will teach a master percussion class.
• Gloria Bonder, a women’s and educational studies scholar, is a leading scholar on women and gender issues in Latin America and an active advocate of women’s rights who helped create the Center for Women’s Studies in Argentina. She will direct a postgraduate seminar in “Gender and Public Policies.”
• José Morán, one of Europe’s most innovative thinkers in the field of Spanish literature, is a professor of Spanish language at the University of Turin. His focus has been on Spanish narrative in a comparative context from the 16th to the 20th centuries, with special emphasis on Cervantes and Unamuno. He will teach a course on “Narrative Authority and Presence of the Author.”

For more information, contact Ronnie Hess, (608) 262-5590, rlhess@facstaff.wisc.edu