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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