The most comfortable way to understand a controversial issue is through the eyes and experience of someone like yourself — through normal, everyday people whose challenges and beliefs relate to your own.  That is the way the issue of homosexuality and its often tumultuous relationship with Christianity is told in the documentary "For the Bible Tells Me So" being shown at the University of Kentucky this week.

When First Run Features released "For the Bible Tells Me So" in 2007, it was the film's personal stories that made it so inspiring and powerful, according to many viewers.

UK students, faculty, staff and Lexington residents will now have the chance to experience those stories with the University of

You can tell a lot about a girl from the type of barbecue she prefers. So, do the connections between ketchup, mustard or vinegar, collards or corn — carry cultural weight beyond the calories? University of Texas American studies Professor Elizabeth Engelhardt would most likely say yes. 

Engelhardt will present the third of the University of Kentucky's Place Matters series, titled "Gathering Wild Greens: Foodways Lessons from Appalachia’s Global Past" at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, March 24 in the John Jacob Niles Gallery.  UK English professors Erik Reece and Randall Roorda will participate as discussants in Engelhardt's lecture. 

"I want to talk about how our myths of Southern food can get in the way of understanding a much more complicated story of food and culture

A new exhibition of poster art from World War I at the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky examines the use of the art form as a propaganda tool in wartime, while also providing a glimpse into life on the home front during that time. "World War I and the Art of Persuasion," on view through May 8, features rarely exhibited American, French and German war posters drawn from UK Special Collections Library and three private collections. This exhibition is free and open to the public.

The iconic image of Uncle Sam telling Americans "I Want You" is among the most recognizable posters included in the exhibition. Like many, it conveys a simple message with few words and strong graphics. Others, particularly the French posters, offer complex and beautiful imagery. Leading American

Graduate student Ryan Anderson has started a blog called "Anthropologies," in which contributors explore contemporary anthropology through essays, short articles, and opinion pieces written from diverse perspectives. By presenting various viewpoints and positions, this site seeks to highlight not only what anthropology means to those who practice it, but also how those meanings are relevant to wider audiences.

Anthropology professor Sarah Lyon’s New Book: Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets has just been released. 



Lyon's ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee analyzes the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality. Focusing on La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto, a cooperative in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala, and its relationships with coffee roasters, importers, and certifiers in the United States, "Coffee and Community" argues that while fair trade does benefit small coffee-farming communities, it is more flawed than advocates and scholars have acknowledged.

Anthropology professor Sarah Lyon’s New Book: Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets has just been released. 



Lyon's ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee analyzes the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality. Focusing on La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto, a cooperative in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala, and its relationships with coffee roasters, importers, and certifiers in the United States, "Coffee and Community" argues that while fair trade does benefit small coffee-farming communities, it is more flawed than advocates and scholars have acknowledged.

Ph.D. Student

by Saraya Brewer

photos by Mark Cornelison

With both a Master’s and a doctoral degree under her belt in the past eight years, you’d probably be safe to call Jenny Mooney an academic. Much of Mooney’s time over the past decade has been spent not in the classroom or library, however, but in various prisons and drug and alcohol treatment and research centers. For the most part, Mooney’s work – academic work and career work intertwined – has been centered at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR), where she has conducted what she estimates to be thousands of interviews with research participants who identify themselves as substance users, most of them inmates. Mooney currently serves as a study director at CDAR for two studies funded by the

Fox Farm: A Fort Ancient Village ( A.D. 1100-1650), Mason County, Kentucky

June 9 - August 4, 2011



Fox Farm is one of the largest Fort Ancient sites in the Ohio River valley. It sits on a broad, gently rolling ridgetop about 60 miles north of Lexington, near Maysville, Kentucky. Prehistoric village farming peoples, whom archaeologists call “Fort Ancient,” lived at Fox Farm from about A.D. 1100 to 1650.



Research at the site spans more than a century. It has documented a long-term, intensive occupation, marked by thick cultural deposits, evidence of structure rebuilding, and multiple plazas, mounds, and cemeteries. Despite this long history of investigation, the site itself is very poorly

When the University of Kentucky's Environmental Studies program director position opened up last summer, chemistry Professor David Atwood enthusiastically submitted his application.

But UK's resident expert on the removal of metal contaminants from water wanted to see something more.

 

"In working with others across campus, I was hearing more and more about the need for an interdisciplinary environmental studies major at UK," Atwood explained. "I thought that in order to really make the director position worth it, we should expand what we already had."

 

So, Atwood met with Dean Mark Kornbluh with argument in hand.

 

But to Atwood's surprise, Kornbluh "basically described exactly what I had hoped to do," Atwood laughed. "I guess

When the University of Kentucky's Environmental Studies program director position opened up last summer, chemistry Professor David Atwood enthusiastically submitted his application.

 

But UK's resident expert on the removal of metal contaminants from water wanted to see something more.

 

"In working with others across campus, I was hearing more and more about the need for an interdisciplinary environmental studies major at UK," Atwood explained. "I thought that in order to really make the director position worth it, we should expand what we already had."

 

So, Atwood met with Dean Mark Kornbluh with argument in hand.

 

But to Atwood's surprise, Kornbluh "basically described exactly what I had hoped to do,"

by Whitney Hale



University of Kentucky Opera Theatre presents "Brundibár," a children's opera staged in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. The opera performed for children by children will also feature an appearance by one of the production's original performers, Holocaust survivor Ela Weissberger. "Brundibár" will take the stage March 11 and 13, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Concert Hall.

Performed during the Holocaust at Theresienstadt Camp in Terezín, "Brundibár" was used by the Nazi regime as a propaganda tool to show the world how "happy and productive" the Jewish detainees were at the camps. The piece, was staged more than 50 times at the camp between 1943 and 1944, including

Whitney Turientine

International Studies, Sophomore 

by Joy Gonsalves

International Studies is as promising a program as sophomore Whitney Turientine, is a young scholar. “I always wanted to be an International Studies major,” Turientine began. “I’ve taken Spanish since second grade. I was the one in our family who was always watching travel shows on TV, but I’ve had questions about the world, politically, that no one’s been able to answer.”

Not surprisingly, soon after hearing the International Studies program had been added to the College of Arts & Sciences, Whitney decided to change her Political Science major to a minor and keep Spanish as a second major. The newness of the IS program didn’t deter her: “It’s growing and flexible,” she said, citing its strong recruitment potential as a major broad in scope. She also

by Saraya Brewer

photos by Lee Thomas

Leave it to a graduate student in film studies to hammer out aspects of horror from one of America’s most beloved family Christmas classics. “It’s Christmas film noir,” said Colleen Glenn about "It’s a Wonderful Life." “It’s an extremely dark film.” "It’s a Wonderful Life" is just one of the handful of Jimmy Stewart films that Glenn, a University of Kentucky English Ph.D. candidate with a specialty in film studies, has watched (and re-watched, analyzed, paused, rewound, and watched again) for her dissertation, in which Stewart and other great actors of the mid 20th century –– including Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne –– will each get their own chapter.

“I grew up watching old classic movies on PBS with my family, so I really have my parents to thank for my original interest in film,” Glenn

Linguistics Undergraduate Student

Jessica Holman

"The Place Where Language and People Cross"

by Jessica Fisher

photos by Shaun Ring

If you think that linguistics is just about learning a bunch of different languages then, frankly, you have been misinformed. But don’t take it to heart—most people share this common misconception. Luckily, one of UK’s finest linguistics students, Jessica Holman, is able to clarify what the major really entails and why she is so proud of her eastern Kentucky roots, accent and all.

Born in London, Ky., right in the foothills of Appalachia, Holman developed a love for language at an early age—her native Appalachian English, unique in its own right. After all there is Standard English, which Holman said, “we all need to learn so everyone can understand each other,” but which she also

by Rebekah Tilley

photos by Richie Wireman

For many of us, our freshman year of college is the first transitional step into experiencing the world. As a freshly minted high school graduate, doctoral student Leah Bayens instead spent that first year in the woods reading.

“There is something about that experience that forged in me what was already a deep-seated understanding of the importance of those kinds of rural communities, the importance of not developing everything into suburban enclaves,” explained the Louisville native. “It was a foundational experience for me because of that. It was also my first real foray into understanding farm culture.”

Since that time Bayens has grafted herself into the land, the culture and the nature that surrounds it all. It permeates her graduate research, how she lives her life, and who she is at her core.

University of Kentucky Hispanic Studies professor Susan Larson specializes in 20th century Spanish literature and film. She's currently engaged in research on questions of modernity and the social and cultural implications of urban planning. 

 

"I'm interested in how discourses of science and technology work their way into film, literature and culture in general," she said.

 

Larson spends a great deal of her time within this sub-discipline of a sub-discipline, as is the case for many university professors.

 

Participation in conferences and symposia is very important to Larson's research. But current budget restraints are keeping Larson and her colleagues throughout campus

Inside the Spring 2011 issue of the Wildcat Wrap:

UK Anthropology professor Scott R Hutson was recently awarded two grants to continue his research in the state of Yucatan in Mexico: the Maya Area Cultural Heritage Initiative (MACHI) Grant and a National Science Fund (NSF) Grant, both supporting his work with the Ucí-Cansahcab Regional Integration Project.

“This project has broader impact than what can be learned about the ancient Maya,” Hutson said. His collaborative work with professors from George Mason University and Brigham Young University is focused on both archaeological discovery and promoting the preservation of cultural heritage.

Now more than ever, in the context of a globalizing world and internationalizing curriculum, place matters. And the University of Kentucky has always responded to the need to serve Kentucky through analyzing the connections between the local and the global. 

 

"Place Matters," a four-part lecture series exploring the importance of place in research, pedagogy and citizenship will continue the global conversation, according to UK sociology professor and series organizer Dwight Billings.

 

"We aim to focus on how place matters in Appalachian Studies, but also, how our concerns — the role of place in scholarship, teaching and citizenship — are shared across many disciplines and programs at UK," Billings explained. "While the theme of connectivity can be