Awards and Honors
Book on plant resins garners award from Society
for Economic Botany
Jean Langenheim, professor emerita of ecology and evolutionary
biology, has received the 2004 Klinger Book Award from the Society
for Economic Botany for her book Plant Resins: Chemistry,
Evolution, Ecology, and Ethnobotany. The award is given
annually for an outstanding book on economic botany or ethnobotany.
Published
in 2003 by Timber Press, Plant Resins is the only up-to-date
scientific reference book on the subject (see earlier Currents
story). Few people are aware of the great diversity of resin-producing
plants or the remarkable roles resins play for plants and people.
Often, the first resin that comes to mind is the glue-like sap
of conifers, but in fact many tropical trees and arid-zone shrubs
also produce resin. Resins evolved millions of years ago to
defend plants against their enemies, as recorded by fossil resins
like amber, and humans have used them since prehistory. Plant
Resins tells the whole story about these fascinating plant
products.
The book has three main sections: the production of resins
by plants; the geologic history and ecology of resins; and the
ethnobotany of resins. Langenheim has done important work in
all three areas.
Economist gives invited lecture
Interim Social Sciences Dean and economics professor Michael
Hutchison recently gave an invited lecture to the School of
Business at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. The
title of his talk was, East Asian Capital Flows and World
Financial Stability: Will There be a Freefall on the U.S. Dollar?
Fox awarded memorial lectureship
The Latin American Studies Association has awarded Jonathan
Fox, professor of Latin American and Latino studies, the LASA/Oxfam
America 2004 Martin Diskin Memorial Lectureship.
The award recognizes contributions to activist scholarship
and honors Martin Diskin, an anthropologist, human rights defender,
and activist who combined research and public education to oppose
U.S. government support of wars in Central America during the
1980s. Fox is the fifth recipient of the award and the first
North American to receive it.
Fox, who is a 2004-05 fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, will deliver a lecture during the LASA
annual meeting that takes place October 6-9 in Las Vegas.
Fox specializes in Mexican politics and international development
policy and served as past chair of his department. He coedited
three recent volumes on different dimensions of "globalization
from below," including Mexican Indigenous Migrants in
the U.S. (2004), Demanding Accountability: Civil Society
Claims and the World Bank Inspection Panel (2003), and Cross-Border
Dialogues: U.S.-Mexico Social Movement Networking (2002).
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